


All Of Me

by Katzedecimal



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Crack Treated Seriously, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Time Travel, so many Crowleys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-22
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:54:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 22,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22852828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katzedecimal/pseuds/Katzedecimal
Summary: There was a customer in the shop, which was odd because the shop wasn’t open.  Aziraphale sighed and put his book down.  The shop had a mind of its own sometimes and it wasalwaysopen for someone in trouble.  He got up to put the kettle on then went to take a quick look at his visitor, to get an idea of what kind of trouble they were in.As it turned out, rather a lot.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 312
Kudos: 216





	1. Chapter 1

There was a customer in the shop, which was odd because the shop wasn’t open. Aziraphale sighed and put his book down. The shop had a mind of its own sometimes and it was _always_ open for someone in trouble. He got up to put the kettle on then went to take a quick look at his visitor, to get an idea of what kind of trouble they were in. 

It was a woman - that wasn’t surprising. She stood in the middle of the shop, staring around herself. Apparently Muslim, possibly Arabic, if the black abaya and shayla were anything to go by. Aziraphale sighed unhappily - London had become a _difficult_ place to be a Muslim woman wearing hijab.

“Where am I?” she said. Her voice was as low as Bea Arthur’s. It reminded Aziraphale of Crowley’s voice when she was presenting female, she had a similar timbre and depth.

And then he realized she was speaking Aramaic. He realized he hadn’t heard the bell jingle, just as the woman turned and he saw a flash of long auburn waves. She noticed him and quickly pulled her shayla across to shield her face. “Crowley?”

Her golden eyes widened as she finally recognised him, “Aziraphale?? Is that _you?_ ”

Aziraphale tipped his head, “Why wouldn’t it be? Did you have a nice nap, my dear?”

She was staring at him blankly. He repeated himself in Aramaic, now suspecting something was wrong. “I was shopping,” she said, “And then I’m here and you’re dressed like _that_ and you’re speaking strange words.” Something was **definitely** wrong.

“What is this place?” Ah! - that was definitely Crowley. Aziraphale smiled and stepped around a shelf then halted. The woman jerked her shayla across her face reflexively. 

It wasn’t Crowley. It was Crawley, decked in fur and wool, face painted with blue patterns, auburn hair in braided locks, speaking a long-dead pre-European language that had never had a name. Aziraphale remembered _this_ Crawley very well. 

“Umm… Hello?”

Aziraphale looked around to see Crawley, definitely Crawley, in a plain black robe and a single braid ornamenting their long auburn waves, speaking in a Mesopotamian dialect. He looked back at … Crowley, yes, she had started using Crowley by then, when she stood with him at Golgotha, and started to feel a rising panic.

A creak on the stair made him whip around to see Crowley - _his_ Crowley, modern Crowley, the Crowley who’d gone up to nap - standing there. “Angel?” Crowley said warily. 

The woman Crowley gasped, jerking her shayla up over her face to hide the first hints of fear. Caution was turning to apprehension in the Crawleys as well. “Your sunglasses, my dear,” Aziraphale said evenly, “They don’t know what they are yet and… they do come across as quite intimidating.”

“Right,” Crowley said. He reached up slowly, telegraphing his movements, and removed his sunglasses. The other demons stared at his revealed golden snake eyes, looking relieved and very, very confused. “What’s going on?”

“I think they’re real,” Aziraphale said, “She said she was shopping then she was here. I think they’re you, I think they’ve been pulled from your past. And they don’t understand us.”

“Right. Soon fix that,” Crowley said. He switched to a language only demons and angels knew, “I’m going to do a miracle that will let you all understand the current language, that alright?”

“That’s fine by me!” said another voice, “’Cause I have no idea what’s going on or where I am and this is the first thing anybody’s said that I understand.” They stepped out of the back room, all auburn ringlets and golden eyes and black robes and coal-black wings, “I have **lots** of questions!”

“He wasn’t there when I went to put the kettle on,” Aziraphale stared.

“Well it’s not Alexandria. I’ve been to Alexandria and this isn’t it. I don’t know what this is.” Yet another figure stepped around a shelf, sunlight glinting off the silver laurel wreath in his hair. 

“Not Alexandria. Londinium,” Aziraphale said. 

“Londinium?! I was walking into a tavern in Rome, how’d I get back here? And why are you dressed like that? That **is** you, isn’t it, Angel?”

“Who **are** all you people?” the one with the ringlets finally burst out, “And why do you all look like me?”

Crowley pulled his miracle and said, “We **are** you. From further along in time, by the look of it. Pulled out of Eden, right? You tempted the humans yet?”

“Yeah, that went over like a lead balloon,” the ringletty one sighed. He had put his wings away, finding them too cramped among the shelves.

“Met the angel?” The way the ringletty one smiled was answer enough. Crowley took a deep breath. “It’s been six thousand years since then. That’s him over there.” Aziraphale smiled and waved. 

Everyone **stared.** “Six… _thousand_ years?” the one with the single braid gasped.

Crowley nodded. 

Crowley in the shayla frowned. “What’s all that out there, then? Is that **the world** out there?” she said and pointed out the window.

“It is,” Crowley nodded.

Another head peeked around a bookshelf, “You mean they didn’t all die of starvation and disease? I find that hard to believe.”

“I think this is seven,” Aziraphale said, on his way to the back room, “I’m not sure I have enough cups.”

“Fourteenth Century?” Crowley asked the newest arrival, cringing in sympathy, “Oooo. I’m so sorry. The good news is, it’s over. The bad news is, you didn’t sleep through it.” He looked back at Aziraphale, “I slept through the entire bloody Industrial Revolution but not the Fourteenth Century!”

“Hindsight is twenty-twenty, my dear,” the angel called back.

Crowley beckoned to the newest arrival - arrival **s** , he realized. Behind the fourteenth century Crowley, dressed in her noblewoman’s kirtle and surcoat, auburn hair hidden beneath a black linen wimple, was a man - well, a man-shaped occult being, apparently caught in the middle of putting on his black armour and gotten as far as his greaves before suddenly appearing in a bookshop. “Eight, Angel,” Crowley called.

“I’ll just get a bigger teapot,” Aziraphale sighed. He looked up at the jingle of the bell over the bookshop door. 

“Oi, Angel!” Crowley called, “Something weird just happened-”

“Nine,” said Crowley.

Aziraphale looked out to see Crowley, as she looked while they were working at the Dowling estate, looking stunned. “Yes it has, my dear. Take a seat with the others, I’ll have tea up in a jiffy.”

Crowley took off her sunglasses and stared. The other Crowleys were taking off their smoked lenses as well, only slightly reassured by the sight of so many snake-gold eyes. Crowley looked back at Aziraphale, “…Date?”

“Just a years on from you, really,” Crowley answered, “Hi. I appear to be the oldest one, so far.”

Crowley looked around again, “So, we’ve all been pulled out of our proper time periods and sent here?”

Crowley nodded, “Sure looks like it. The question is, Why?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All of the time-lost Crowleys had either been asleep and just woken up, or had been doing something utterly mundane. The only thing in common was they had walked through a door of some kind - a tent flap, a hide closure, an archway, an Eastern Gate, an actual door - when they were blinded by brilliant light and when their sight cleared, they were in the bookshop.

The discussion over tea had produced very little useful information. All of the time-lost Crowleys had either been asleep and just woken up, or had been doing something utterly mundane. The only thing in common was they had walked through a door of some kind - a tent flap, a hide closure, an archway, an Eastern Gate, an actual door - when they were blinded by brilliant light and when their sight cleared, they were in the bookshop.

Aziraphale gazed at the ringletty Crawly. “You must have been taken just after I’d turned to pick up the stone,” he said sadly.

Crawly nodded, “Probably. Yeah. That makes sense.”

“I’m sorry,” the angel sighed, “It’s a good job you left when you did, though. No sooner had I sealed it up when the Almighty Herself showed up, asking what I’d done with my sword.”

Crawly’s golden eyes went wide, “Whoops! Well you didn’t Fall, so you can’t have got in too much trouble… What’d you tell Them?”

The other Crawleys and Crowleys started giggling. Crowley’s mouth spread into a wide grin. Aziraphale spread his hands with a shy smile, “I said I must have put it down somewhere.”

“It wasn’t _exactly_ lying,” the blue-painted Crawley giggled.

“I know, that’s the best part!” giggled Crowley from her shayla.

“I love that story,” said Crawley who’d been on the Ark. Crawly from Eden just about fell over laughing, as it was the first time he’d heard it.

“And he’s been like that ever since,” Crowley grinned. He grew serious again and looked at Crawly, “So you’d just escaped from Eden.” Crawly nodded. “After a temptation that did not go exactly as planned,” he said thoughtfully. He glanced at Crawley next, “And you’d just snuck off the Ark through the hole in the hull…”

“Nobody knows about that!”

Crowley gave him a Look and spread his hands, “Literally the only one here who _doesn’t_ know about that is the Eden one!”

“Ummmm,” said the fourteenth century Crowley and her eyes darted pointedly at Aziraphale.

“He figured it out from a book,” Crowley sighed, “He knows, alright, he knows about the hole in the Ark and that we plugged it, can we move on?” He pointed at Crowley in the shayla, “What were you doing?”

“Planning on leaving the country after watching a young man die gruesomely for being kind,” she said bitterly.

“Hell come for you yet?”

She glanced up suspiciously, “…No, why would they?”

“You’ll find out,” said Crowley with the laurel wreath, darkly.

“And you were entering a tavern after another temptation went off the rails,” Crowley said to him, “Angel tempt you to lunch yet?”

Crowley with the laurels stared at him, “ _Pardon?_ ”

“He was sitting across from the bar.”

“I had my back to you at first,” Aziraphale admitted.

“So taken after entering the tavern but before meeting Aziraphale again,” Crowley said. He turned back to the one in the shayla, “And _you_ also had a failed temptation.”

She frowned, “I wouldn’t call it that…”

“Hell did,” said the laurels one, voice still dark. She stared at him and narrowed her eyes. 

“And you three,” Crowley continued, pointing at the blue-painted Crawley and the two Middle-Ages Crowleys, “Thwarted.”

“If you can call it that,” huffed Crowley who’d been a knight, “We were just cancelling each other out.”

The fourteenth century Crowley’s lips twitched in amusement, “’Thwarted.’”

“Yes alright but it was **fun,** ” Crowley grinned.

The bell over the bookshop door jingled and they all tensed. Aziraphale looked up with a frown. “Mr. Fell?” a familiar brogue called. 

Aziraphale’s frown deepened and he looked up at the bookshop’s ceiling and mouthed ‘Why?’ He got up and went out to the main room, “Mr. Shadwell, how lovely to see you. And how is Mrs. Shadwell?”

“Well enough, well enough. Erm, it’s about the pension…”

Aziraphale suppressed a patient sigh, “Of course, yes. I’ll just get my chequebook.” He walked to the back room. 

Shadwell followed him. 

The Crawleys reflexively shook their hair down over their eyes. Crowley pulled her shayla across her face. Then Crowley snapped his fingers and everyone who didn’t have smoked lenses was suddenly wearing them.

Just in time. “Afternoon, Mr. Crowley,” Shadwell greeted him, “Oh! Are these your relatives?”

“Yes!” Crowley said in a brittle voice, “These are my, my cousins!” Crowley had been pretending to be his own children for thousands of years - every single Crowley and Crawley immediately smiled. Even Crowley had to admit, the effect was a little unnerving. “This is, this is, um, ... Coraline and and Contessa and um, um, Wes, and um, that's Mary and her um twin brother Roman, and and Bear and and Tempest and um um-" he struggled with what to call his youngest version, "-Wally." He cringed. All of him cringed. “Um, this is Mr. Shadwell.”

“Hello Mister Shadwell,” they all chorused. Shadwell stared. Aziraphale’s hand fluttered to his forehead.

Shadwell waved a bit hesitantly, “Bit of a family reunion, is it?”

“Yes,” they all chorused. In the same voice.

Aziraphale bit his lips to keep from laughing. “Here you are, Mr. Shadwell,” he said, handing him the cheque and starting to guide him back out to the front, “Do give my love to Madame Tracy…” He locked the door firmly behind Shadwell and leaned on it.

As one, every Crowley and Crawley turned to Look at Crowley and chorused, “ _’WALLY?!?’_ ”

“Seriously?!” said the one identified as Coraline. 

“Yeah okay not my best work,” Crowley sighed.

“’Coraline’, alright, I used that when I worked as a nanny, but ‘Bear’? ‘Wes’?”

Roman sneered, “’Roman’?? You really think I want to be reminded of all that?”

“Look, I was on the spot, alright?? I wasn’t expecting Shadwell to show up, I thought the door was locked!”

“Hashtag fail,” said Coraline.

Crowley fixed her with a Look and a grin, “Oh I know why _you’re_ here.”

Coraline stared at him suspiciously, “Why?” But Crowley just snickered.

“Why ‘Bear’?” asked the blue-painted one.

“That’s what they called us in the mythology that grew up around us, Beithir, something like that. That was as close as I could remember to how it was actually pronounced.”

“And ‘Wes’ from ‘Wessex,’” the knight one sneered, “Am I right?”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“Enough, gentles, I didn’t hear any of us piping up with any suggestions of our own,” the 14th century Contessa rolled her eyes, “We were _all_ caught by surprise.”

The grumbling settled down at that. Mary took off her smoked lenses and looked at them, “Huh, so that’s what they are.” She glanced up at Crowley, “At first I thought you didn’t **have** eyes. Just voids… where your soul used to be.”

Crowley paused for a moment to think about that. “Yeah I can see how it might look like that,” he conceded, “But they’re just sunglasses. They shield your eyes from the sun… but more importantly, they shield my eyes from the humans.” Everyone nodded.

“Snatched those up when I saw them in the market,” Roman agreed, “They made it a lot easier to get the job done.”

“Huh,” Mary said again. She set them down across her knee and looked critically at Crowley, “So you think you know why this is happening?”

Crowley looked too innocent, “Did I say that?”

“Yes you did.” The others nodded. 

“You told that one you know why she’s here,” Wes pointed at Coraline, who tipped her head to gaze smugly at Crowley.

“Yeah I did, didn’t I,” Crowley sighed, scratching the back of his head. He sighed, “I think it’s someone’s idea of a punishment.”

Contessa arched an eyebrow above her glasses, “How so?”

“Well, ummmm… I mean… Who doesn’t feel embarrassed when they think of the things they did when they were younger?”

The demons all looked at each other. Then they looked back at him, “…Us?”

“Yeah, someone didn’t think it through very well.”

“Let me get this straight,” Contessa said, “We’ve all botched something up and you’re supposed to look back on us and feel humiliated?”

Crowley nodded, “Yeah, I think so.” Coraline frowned and stared at him. 

“Someone doesn’t know us very well,” Contessa sniffed. 

“If they truly wanted to embarrass you, they’ve have sent the one in Paris,” Aziraphale agreed. 

Crowley gave him a hard stare, “And what’s **that** supposed to mean?”

“You have made some highly questionable choices in hairstyling, my dear.”

“Yeah alright, maybe in hindsight, but that was in fashion at the time!”

“I would argue that the goatee you sported during the reign of Elizabeth I had much to answer for but, really, 1992? - that mushroom cut of yours should have been put on trial.”

Crowley, who had been looking outraged, cringed, “…Fair point.”

Aziraphale grinned at the others and demonstrated, tapping a point just past the top of his head, several inches above his ears, “It stopped about here. I refused to be seen with him until he grew it out.” Coraline winced but then looked at Crowley and nearly bit into her knuckle trying not to laugh.

“I want to hear more about these hairstyles,” Mary piped up.

“They changed quite a lot over the 20th Century,” Aziraphale grinned before Crowley could stop him, “The moustache in the 1970s was… not preferable but tolerable, but after the fashion for androgyny of the early 1980s - oh he was **splendid** during that - well, after that, he went in for this **big** crimped lion mane like those ‘hair metal’ bands, along with the leather trousers and the false leopard fur trim on his jacket and it was all downhill after that.”

“Oi!” said Coraline.

“I understood only about half the words of that and what I understood sounds hilarious,” Mary grinned viciously. Crowley snarled at her.

“What I’m hearing here is that the Angel knows us better than anyone in Hell,” Roman smirked.

“Mind you, it’d work on Hastur,” Wes pointed out.

Contessa tipped her head and nodded, “Fair point.”

“And Dagon,” Mary added.

“And Beelzebub,” Bear agreed.

“Okay, starting to see why they thought this would work,” Crowley conceded.

“I suppose we’re not embarrassed because we know what actually happened,” Bear speculated, “I couldn’t complete my mission, sure, but I wasn’t leaving the angel dismembered like that.”

“He **what?** Oh Hell no!” Tempest agreed.

Wes nodded, “And we **knew** we were just cancelling each other out. A whole bunch of missions were just pointless.” He looked at Contessa, “And what was ‘fun’ about being ‘thwarted’ and yes I heard quotes around that, what happened there?”

“It wasn’t my fault!” Aziraphale blurted. He shifted uncomfortably, “Well, there is a saying… ‘A good friend will help you move but a true friend will help you move a body.’” He twisted his hands and rubbed his waistcoat as everyone **stared** at him and Contessa grinned. “Crowley is a **very** true friend.”

“ _Nothing_ went right on that mission,” Contessa giggled.

Coraline grinned, “It **was** very educational, though.”

“Back up, why did **Aziraphale** need to dispose of a **body**?!” Roman asked. 

“It wasn’t my fault! He was already dead when I got there!”

Mary grinned, “Are we allowed to hear these stories because they sound fascinating.”

“Yes, that’s the other thing, how long are we going to be here?” said Tempest.

Crowley shook his head, “I couldn’t say. I’ve never heard of this happening before.”

“So what do we do in the meantime, then?” Mary asked, looking around, “Do we have to stay here?”

“I’m not your jailer,” Crowley shrugged, “The world’s changed a lot though. You’ll want to learn the current etiquette and the safety rules before you go exploring. Wouldn’t do to have any of us hit by a car.”

“’Car?’ Is that what those…things are? Those things out there that move around so fast?”

Crowley started to grin, “Yeah. They’re carriages without a horse.” He watched as every face filled with gleeful envy. “No more getting bucked off.” The faces got even more excited. He grinned wider.

Coraline was grinning too. “Could drive them ‘round to the flat,” she suggested. She wrinkled her nose a little, “Could show them the shower, too.”

Tempest frowned, “Shower? Like… rain?”

Coraline winced, “Ehhh… not that. More the bath kind.”

Contessa’s head snapped up, followed by Mary’s. “Bath?” they chorused.

“They had decent baths in Babylon,” Bear said wistfully, “They had that wonderful stuff made from wood ash and camellia oil.”

“Soap,” Wes sighed, “Wouldn’t have that again until I was sent to Gaul, in the Celtic lands. Rome had decent baths but they didn’t have soap.”

Contessa nodded, “Scraping off olive oil with a bit of brass just doesn’t take off the smell of the brimstone quite as well.”

“We’ve got soap,” Crowley grinned, “We’ve got better than soap, too.”

“Brimstone B Gone,” Coraline smiled.

“When do we leave?” Wes breathed.

Crowley looked around, “Angel?”

“No time like the present,” Aziraphale smiled and spread his hands, “Get thee upwind of me, foul fiends!”

“Oi!”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They stood on the pavement, panting and laughing hysterically as the Bentley discharged its passengers. “It’s like a clown car full of snake demons,” Coraline gasped.

They argued over who was going to drive the Bentley. Their first… internal argument, technically, and _of course_ it was going to be **that.** While Coraline and Crowley got in each other’s faces, Aziraphale huffed and tapped his foot. The others were gazing in wonder at the Bentley, cooing over its sleek black lines, wondering at its headlamps, nervously touching it. It seemed to be preening under all the attention. Finally Aziraphale’s patience ran out. 

Which is why Coraline and Crowley broke off their hissing contest as the Bentley rolled serenely past them, its windows filled with gleeful demon faces waving at them, its angelic driver waving with a devilish smirk. They ran screaming after it all the way to Mayfair.

Now they stood on the pavement, panting and laughing hysterically as the Bentley discharged its passengers. “It’s like a clown car full of snake demons,” Coraline gasped.

“Chasing after a clown car full of mes is not something I ever expected to be doing with my life,” Crowley agreed, wiping tears from his face. He turned to Aziraphale, “Angel, what the hell?” Coraline tried to glare glaringly and failed.

“I just thought it might be better **not** to completely terrify them on their first outing,” Aziraphale’s prim tone did not match his mischievous smirk at all.

“It’s taller than the one at Babel!” Bear said, staring up at the block of flats, “Is it the tallest one in the world?”

Crowley laughed, “Not even close! Currently, the tallest tower is in Saudi Arabia.”

Tempest stared at him, “’Currently’?”

“Oh yeah! They keep outdoing themselves.”

Mary gaped at him, “And They haven’t knocked them down?”

Crowley shook his head and spread his hands, “Don’t ask me what goes through Their head.” He glanced at Aziraphale and he and Coraline mimicked the angel’s tone and little head swaggle as they chorused, “It’s ineffable!” Aziraphale gave them a Look that made Coraline start giggling and murmur something about a frog. Crowley grinned, “C’mon, I’ll show you upstairs. You’re gonna love the plants!”

They went upstairs, where the Crowleys all cooed over the snake doorbell, much to Aziraphale’s amusement. And then they entered the flat. They immediately spread out to look at everything and Aziraphale was very, very glad that he had cleaned up the mess of post-holy-water Ligur. The angels statue drew particular attention, causing every single black eyebrow to rise with that identical expression. 

And then they saw the shower. 

Crowley’s shower was enormous, far larger than any single being would need. It was easily large enough to accommodate nine demons. It had side jets and rain heads and misters and was, frankly, the most absurdly, obnoxiously ostentatious shower Crowley could find. He had an equally ridiculous bathtub but the shower was a much better choice when faced with seven eager demons from various time periods where the hygiene practices were totally inadequate to deal with the peculiar aromas of Hell. 

“I’ll take care of them,” Coraline chuckled, “Make sure nobody breaks their necks or gets shampoo in their eyes.”

“I just hope I have enough towels,” Crowley smirked. He snapped his fingers upwards. “Oh well. I do now. Have fun, guys!” he called.

Aziraphale went into the kitchen, found Crowley’s whiskey, poured a finger’s worth into a glass and handed it to him, “How are you holding up?”

Crowley shrugged. He flipped open his laptop and opened the browser, “They’ll want clothes. Might as well see what’s current.” Aziraphale was watching him carefully. “How was the ride over?”

“They were like little kids,” Aziraphale smiled, “I don’t know how long they’ll be here but… well, should we treat it like a vacation for them? Or would it be wiser to shield them from too much technology? Luxury?”

Crowley turned and leaned back to look at him., “Afraid they’ll get addicted to warm showers? Horseless carriages? Comfortable beds? Instant telecommunication?” The sound of giggling was starting to rise from the bathroom.

“Aren’t **we**?” Aziraphale smirked. 

“Yeah,” Crowley admitted, “You’re right. Having all of _this_ and then having to go back to…”

“Neolithic Europe,” Aziraphale agreed.

“The 14th Century,” Crowley shuddered.

“Rome,” they chorused.

“Rome wasn’t _that_ bad,” Aziraphale conceded. 

Crowley curled his lip, “It wasn’t that great, either. ….Oh, they just discovered the soap.”

“Something’s becoming very clear to me,” Aziraphale began delicately, “Something changed for you, around the time that Jeshua died.” He watched as Crowley’s expression instantly shuttered. “I noticed it at the time, when we met in Rome, and I’ve thought about it ever since. But seeing you all together like this, I’m certain of it… Something happened and it changed you. You haven’t been the same ever since.” Crowley took a deep swallow of the whiskey. Aziraphale leaned forward to lay his hand briefly on top of Crowley’s. “I won’t press,” he said, “But… I did notice. I suppose I felt that you should know that.”

Crowley grunted and took another sip of whiskey. “Maybe vacation,” he conceded, “I already said I wasn’t their jailer. I’m not going to try to keep them confined. I wouldn’t stay confined anyways, I’d be looking for ways to escape anyhow.”

“Vacation, then,” Aziraphale agreed, already forming a plan. 

“Are they having a water fight in there?” Crowley looked around at the bathroom door. 

“It sounds like it,” Aziraphale grinned, “I do hope nobody slips and hurts themselves.”

“Should be alright,” Crowley said doubtfully. He looked back at Aziraphale, “How about you, Angel? This is a shock to you as well, right?”

Aziraphale just smiled, “I have lots of my favourite snake demon to dote on.” 

Crowley smirked, “ **That’s** going to make them uncomfortable.”

“Oh I’m sure it will,” Aziraphale agreed, “But if that was the point in bringing them here…?”

Crowley snorted, “No, I think it was to make **me** uncomfortable.”

“Oh I know how to do _that_ ,” Aziraphale purred. He leaned across and whispered into Crowley’s ear. 

Crowley nearly sprayed his whiskey. “ _ **Angel!!**_ ” he sputtered, “You can’t say **that!** ”

“Easy as pie!” Aziraphale chuckled. Crowley snarled at him.

The bathroom door cracked open, releasing a billow of steam, and Coraline poked her head out, “Sorry, we used all the conditioner.”

Crowley shrugged, “I’ve got more at the bookshop. Just clean up the mess, were you lot having a water fight in there?”

“I was just showing them how the handheld units worked,” Coraline dodged.

Crowley smirked, “And you got carried away.”

“Might have done, yeah,” Coraline confirmed and shut the door again. Crowley shook his head, grinning. The shower shut off and there was more giggling. Crowley grinned at Aziraphale. The door cracked open and Coraline poked her head out again, “Ummm…”

“Extra bathrobes in the bedroom.”

Coraline jerked her head back towards the bathroom then towards the bedroom. Then there was a mad dash of demons wrapped in fluffy black towels and Crowley bit his knuckles to keep from laughing too hard. Eventually they emerged, hair in wet ringlets, wrapped in soft black satin bathrobes, scrubbed pink and looking (and smelling!) much refreshed. Coraline had found or miracled combs for all of them and they sat in the living room detangling each other’s hair while Crowley spoke. “Alright so as you’ve probably noticed, the clothes are quite a bit different, so,” he paused, “…Are we missing somebody?” 

A quick check and head count revealed that Mary and Bear were missing. “Back here,” Coraline said, smiling. Crowley got up to look. 

The tempting expanse of Crowley’s large bed had simply proven to be too hard to resist for the Neolithic demon and the demon who’d just witnessed the gruesome execution of someone she knew - the two were curled up on it, already sound asleep. Crowley felt his heart soften and he glanced back at Aziraphale. Aziraphale’s smile was tender and he suggested, “Perhaps some time to rest first?”

Crowley glanced back at his other selves. Most of them were casting longing glances at the bed. Silently he walked in and pressed some buttons on a pod on the night table, then went back to the door. “Go ahead,” he told them in a soft voice, “Afraid you’ll get spoiled off it though. No bugs, no pokey bits, supports the spine, self-warming mattress pad - it’s the second-best bed I’ve ever had.” Coraline narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Go ahead and get some rest, everyone. You’ve earned it.”

“You deserve it,” Aziraphale added, smiling like candlelight, “Dream of what you like best, my dears.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A hand seized his wrist and dragged him back into the bedroom. “What happened? What did Hell do?” Mary hissed.
> 
> “What makes you think Hell did anything?” Roman dodged.
> 
> “Oh you’ve only been dropping hints!” Mary said sarcastically, “We can all see it! Something happened to you and it has something to do with me!”
> 
> Roman looked away, “I’m not telling you your future.”
> 
> Mary narrowed her eyes at him. “Fine,” she said, “Then tell me about your past.”

“…Can’t go around _blessing_ them, Angel!”

“I can and I will,” Aziraphale replied primly, “It hasn’t hurt you once.”

Crowley sputtered, “That’s not the point! They’re demons!”

Aziraphale arched an eyebrow, “Are you saying they’re not worthy of my blessing?” Crowley sputtered wordlessly. Aziraphale smiled and pressed his advantage, “Are you saying _you_ are not worthy of my blessing?” He stepped forward and kissed Crowley lightly, “Because I’ll argue that until the last day of eternity.” Crowley had fallen silent and Aziraphale chuckled. “I’ll go get us another bottle of whiskey, shall I?”

As soon as Aziraphale had entered the kitchen, Coraline surged out of the shadows, seized Crowley’s wrist and dragged him into the plant room. “I saw the date!” she hissed. Crowley grinned. “Warlock should be thirteen by now.”

“Oh good, you can do math,” Crowley chuckled.

“Shut up! What went wrong?”

“What makes you think something went wrong?”

“Because you said you knew why I’m here!” Coraline shot back, “You said you’re supposed to be embarrassed by us, by our mistakes! So what is it? What did I do?” Silence stretched out between them. Coraline tipped her head, keeping her eyes on Crowley. “…I’ve got the wrong boy, haven’t I.”

“The world’s still here,” Crowley said gently, “That’s all that matters. Warlock is fine.”

“And you and Aziraphale…” Coraline said slowly. Crowley bit his lip. “‘Second-best bed,’ you said,” her voice dropped to a whisper, as though she hardly dared hope, “…together?”

Crowley looked away. “I won’t say it was easy,” he said finally, “In some ways it was worse than the eight years in Hell.” Coraline nodded. Crowley looked back, “But it’s worth it.”

Coraline blew out a heavy sigh and scraped her hand through her hair, “Alright. Alright.” She looked back sharply, “But if I’m **here** , that means somebody figured it out!”

Crowley nodded, “Yeah they did figure it out eventually, yeah. But it’s worked out fine, really.” He touched her shoulder lightly, “Just stick with the plan. It’ll go off the rails, it always does, but it’ll work out fine.”

“Hell won’t…”

Crowley shook his head, “There’s nothing left to fear, Crowley. Not from Heaven, not from Hell. We did it. We’re free.”

* * * *

Aziraphale looked up from his book to see Contessa was slowly shuffling down the hall from the bedroom. The expression on her face made his heart melt and sing. “What do you need, my dear?” he asked softly.

She shuffled into the little pool of light near the couch where Aziraphale lay reading a book with a snake on his lap. She wasn’t wearing her lenses and the expression in her eyes was yearning. “…Water?” she said.

Aziraphale immediately put the book down and sat up slowly and carefully. He lifted one snake - and she realized there were two of them - to loop around his neck. “Sorry,” he said as he lifted the other snake, “Have to do a bit of snake-wrangling. The poor dears only just fell asleep and I’d hate to wake them again.” Snakes wrangled, he got up and went to the kitchen to find a pitcher and glasses and showed her how to use the taps. They took the pitcher and glasses back to the couch, in case any of the others woke up thirsty. Then Aziraphale stretched out on the couch again and rearranged his passengers. He smiled at Contessa, “It does get a bit nippy in here, doesn’t it?” 

“Yes,” said Contessa, drinking. Aziraphale could see the longing in her eyes clearly but knew she needed to square it with herself before she would act on it. “That bed was warm.”

“Isn’t it lovely? Oh, Crowley became so much happier after he bought that heated mattress pad. It was lovely to see him so rested.” He gazed tenderly at the unmoving black noodle coiled across his chest. “I have plenty of warmth to share if you get chilly.”

Contessa finished her water and set the glass down. “I do feel a bit cold,” she said hesitantly. Slowly she shifted her form into another black snake. 

Aziraphale smiled and reached for her, helping her to settle among the coils of Crowley and Coraline. “Shall I read to you, my dear?” Contessa did the Crowley-snake version of a shrug. Aziraphale stroked her head lightly then picked up his book again and began to read.

* * * *

A few hours later, Roman woke up. He looked around at the large, nearly empty bed, feeling slightly annoyed because he had _finally_ been warm enough. He wondered where the others were and felt a stab of panic. He drew back the covers and eased off the bed silently so as not to disturb the few remaining. 

A hand seized his wrist and dragged him back into the bedroom. “What happened? What did Hell do?” Mary hissed.

“What makes you think Hell did anything?” Roman dodged.

“Oh you’ve only been dropping hints!” Mary said sarcastically, “We can all see it! Something happened to you and it has something to do with me!”

Roman looked away, “I’m not telling you your future.”

Mary narrowed her eyes at him. “Fine,” she said, “Then tell me about your past.”

Roman looked at her and this time his expression was less guarded. He glanced around and saw Wes sitting up on the bed, watching them. Finally he relented. “Hell wasn’t happy about the whole temptation thing with Jeshua.”

Mary frowned, puzzled, “Why not? I did what they told me to do.”

“They decided it was a bust. A complete failure.”

Mary shook her head, “He had his free will! It went how it’s supposed to go, I show him the door, he decides if he wants to go through it and he didn’t…”

“ **I know that!** ”

“Hey!” Mary snapped, “ _I’m_ the one facing whatever the Hell they did to you, _you’ve_ already done it!”

“I know,” Roman sighed apologetically. His hand fluttered to his forehead. “Hell didn’t see it that way. It was an important temptation - that’s why they sent us - and they deemed it a failure. An embarrassment. They wanted a scapegoat.”

Mary sucked in a breath. “Oh no…”

Roman nodded, “They flayed me alive, encorporated. Over and over, slowly. For eight years.”

Mary sucked in another breath and let it out slowly as she digested that. “Good thing we’re a snake,” she breathed, “Only eight years? Seems a bit odd. They usually hold a grudge for longer than that.”

“Yes. I don’t know, maybe they got bored of all the layers. I don’t know. But after eight years, they let me go. Gave me a new assignment and sent me back topside.”

Mary narrowed her eyes suspiciously, “….How long ago was that?”

Roman looked away, “………Just a few days ago.”

She blew out a hard breath, “No wonder you’re a mess. How’d that temptation go?”

Roman cringed, “A complete botch.”

Wes held up a hand, “No. You said you hadn’t met the angel yet, right? You walked into the tavern but you hadn’t seen the angel.”

Roman scowled at him, “So?”

“Aziraphale’s going to make you an offer,” Wes said, gazing at him earnestly, “Take the offer. It’ll make all the difference. You’ll be sent topside again. You’ll be stuck doing shit assignments in the dampest armpits of the world but it’s better than Hell **and** … You’ll see the angel a lot more often. Trust me, _please_ \- take the angel’s offer. You’ll know what to do with it straight away.”

Roman nodded, “If we even remember any of this.”

Wes glanced around then leaned forward to whisper, “I remember enough. Not everything, but enough to know I needed to accept the Angel’s offer.” He glanced at Mary, “And enough to know I got through this. But you should get started right away.”

Mary nodded, “I already have.”

Roman nodded in resignation. “I should go find where the others went to,” he sighed. Then he slipped through the door and looked around. “Oh, here you all are,” he said, coming out into the living room. Mary and Wes poked their heads around the door then followed him. 

Aziraphale looked up from his nest of demon snakes and his smile was dazzlingly bright. “Hello! You’re welcome to join us!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I had some kind of hardware/software disaster that corrupted all of my Good Omens Scrivener files, including my WIPs. My incredible, fantastic, amazing, hands-off-they're-mine spouse did a forensic deep dive and managed to recover a fair number of the files, which I must now patiently import back into new Scrivener projects, one page at a time. On the plus side, they managed to recover the two chapters I was working on, this one and the next chapter of _Learning To See._ We have this chapter entirely because of my Best Beloved's dedicated recovery work. All hail Kallita, Rescuer Of The Fics!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale had whiskey instead of wine but he did have a book, and he was buried in nine snake-shaped demons all sound asleep on his person.
> 
> They were snoring.

If anyone had asked Aziraphale what his idea of paradise would be like, he would immediately reply with his bookshop, some classical music, a good book, and a glass of wine. This would not be entirely accurate. Privately, he would be thinking of his bookshop, some classical music, a good book, a glass of wine, and a certain demon who is very dear to him. 

He would never have thought of Crowley’s flat or Crowley’s boxy couch. He had whiskey instead of wine but he did have a book, and he was buried in nine snake-shaped demons all sound asleep on his person.

They were snoring. 

Mortal snakes don’t snore but snake-shaped occult entities do. The first time Aziraphale had heard it, he had had to bite his lips to keep from giggling out loud. He was biting his lips again at each tiny little wheee _fneeeee_ **heeeee** fweeeee that punctuated the silent flat. He was afraid he might actually discorporate from all the cute.

Very, very carefully, he reached for Crowley’s cell phone, managed to unlock it on the third try, and found the audio recorder.

He turned his attention back to the snakes in his lap (and on his chest and around his neck and around his arms and) and thought back to the first time he had cuddled with the Serpent of Eden. That was Bear, he remembered, who was currently coiled around Aziraphale’s right bicep, head stretched out and resting on his chest, neck twined around with Coraline’s. Aziraphale remembered it vividly, crossing the Neolithic Alps with his human companion, when they had been set upon by bandits from another tribe. _They had shot his friend in the back with an arrow and wounded Aziraphale, who had had his miracle budget cut for the first time. Stunned by a blow, they’d quickly mobbed him and then the shout that sounded so far away, the blue-painted flame-haired warrior rushing through the snow then… then the Serpent of Eden - forty feet? Sixty feet? - far larger and longer and mightier than any mortal snake, spitting venom and Hellfire as he rushed the bandits… fighting for consciousness as the Serpent flexed his coils, winding around Aziraphale, bringing his severed parts back together and Aziraphale had just enough strength to do one more miracle before he passed out…_

He’d woken in a Neolithic hut, built of stone set in midden. He’d been nestled in the Serpent of Eden’s coils and he had never felt so cared about. That was when Crawley had truly become his friend. He’d cuddled with Crawley often after that, especially when it was cold. 

_I’ll remember it… it was Eden in a rainstorm… sitting in the long grass in the summer, keeping warm_   
_I’ll remember it… every restless night. We were so young then, we feared nothing we could possibly do was right_

He looked down at the snake snuggled beside his left hip and let his hand fall to stroke the black scales lightly. **This** serpent had never known a cuddle or any affection. He’d made an angel laugh for the first time and Aziraphale had sheltered him under his wing as the first rain fell. They had chatted a bit more and felt the first flush of friendship before the rain ended. 

_Then it’s gone, stolen from our very eyes. I wondered where you went to… and tell me, when did the light die?_

Gently he lifted Wally and wrangled him around his neck. Although he’d never known _exactly_ how long it was after Falling that Crawly had been sent up to Eden, Aziraphale had gotten the impression that it was near enough that the pain was still pretty fresh. He settled Wally next to Crowley and stroked his head, determined to show him as much love as he could.

_You will rise, you’ll return, like the phoenix from the flames_   
_You will learn, you will rise._   
_And I’ll see you return, being what you are…_   
_There is no other Troy for you to burn…_

“What’re you doing, Angel?” 

Aziraphale looked down to see a black head rising from his thigh near his knee. He smiled tenderly at Wes, “Remembering all the times we’ve kept each other warm like this.” Because Crowley would never admit to wanting affection, before the Apocalypse. He reached over and tapped the phone recording off. “Did I wake you, my dear?”

“Not really,” Wes grumbled a bit before pointing his blunt nose in the direction of Crowley’s open laptop, “What’s that thing? He was looking at it before we went to sleep, wasn’t he?”

“This won’t make much sense but… It’s called a laptop computer.”

“It…counts?”

“Very broadly, yes,” Aziraphale nodded, “Everything it does has its roots in numbers and codes. What it does do is transmit information. In this case, he was looking up modern fashions in clothing, so you could decide how you’d like to attire yourselves for going out into the current society.”

“That makes sense,” Wes tipped his head in the Crowley-snake version of a nod. Aziraphale slowly and carefully reached for the computer, woke it up, and turned the browser to the pages Crowley had been looking at. “Hmm,” said Wes.

Aziraphale smiled. He was never entirely certain how much or if Crowley’s vision changed when he was snake-shaped versus when he was human-shaped, but he could sense that Wes was reluctant to shift to his human form. “No rush,” he said, “If you’re quite comfortable, so am I.”

“P’p’l ‘r t’lking,” Tempest slurred.

Aziraphale immediately stroked the sleepy snake’s neck, “Sorry to have woken you, my dear. Sleep as long as you like.”

“Hnng,” said Tempest, gliding slowly across Aziraphale’s hips to snuggle up next to Wes, who shifted a few coils trying to make it look non-chalant. “Those’re clothes?”

“Yes,” Aziraphale smiled, “We mostly just wore robes for the longest time, didn’t we? Things started getting rather complicated around the end of the 14th Century. They’ve trimmed down quite a lot since the turn of the 20th Century though.”

“I just want something comfortable,” Wes lamented wistfully, “And warm.”

“We will certainly find you something snug, dear boy,” Aziraphale assured him. 

“W’t’r w’ l’k’ing at?” Contessa mumbled, her coils starting to shift as she wiggled out from under the pile of red bellies. 

Aziraphale smiled and carefully moved a few coils of Wally and Coraline out of the way, causing Mary to stir, “Modern clothes, my dear. Did we wake you?”

“You woke **me** ,” Crowley grumbled.

“Sorry, my dearest,” Aziraphale pressed a light kiss to the blunt head bunting under his chin as it slid past.

“S’fine.” Crowley poured himself onto the floor and into his human shape, sitting cross-legged on the floor next to Aziraphale. He picked up the laptop and started pulling up various fashion sites. 

“Wes would like something cosy,” Aziraphale offered, “Perhaps something along the lines of a Fair Isle jumper? Or maybe tweed?” Crowley hummed and nodded, fingers clicking over the keyboard. 

In the end, Wes settled into a long-sleeved t-shirt under a black Aran jumper over chinos. It seemed to have hit his ‘snug’ button squarely, as he kept hugging himself and looked happier. Contessa settled on a pair of boot-cut yoga trousers and a black cowl-neck jumper, with a long dark crimson cardigan flowing over top. Mary and Roman had decided on jeans with hoodies and knit beanies, and now looked like a pair of middle-aged Goth chavs. 

To Aziraphale’s delight, Bear had decided on a flannel shirt of red and black checked plaid over a long-sleeved t-shirt. Unfortunately, he’d also decided on a black Utilikilt, prompting Coraline to accuse him of looking like he was from somewhere called “Seattle.”

They didn’t start arguing until Tempest chose a black denim maxi-skirt and a black shirt with a unicorn in pink and silver glitter. Then Wally chose a black shirt under black dungarees with Velcro cargo pockets. He immediately liked the sound and kept pulling the pockets open over and over and it wasn’t long before Crowley was hissing in Aziraphale’s ear, “Can we get them out of here **before** I go bananas?”

“I think that’s a very good idea,” Aziraphale whispered back, “Spot of lunch, perhaps?”

Mary looked up, interested, “Lunch?”

Aziraphale smiled his 500-watt smile, “Oh, there’s a lovely little sushi restaurant that I’m very fond of! They do wonderful sashimi!”

“Yeah and they always cut it _kakuzuki_ for me,” Crowley caught Mary’s expression, “Um, raw fish, little cubes, easy to swallow. You dip them in soy sauce, it’s really good anyways, anybody else up for lunch?”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Crowley,” Aziraphale said urgently, _sotto voce_ , “There’s another one.”
> 
> Crowley sighed, “Which one is it this time? Is it the Paris one? I hope it’s not the Paris one, you were right about the hair…”
> 
> “It’s not the Paris one. It’s the one who’s…” Aziraphale trailed off, trying to think of how to phrase this delicately, “-Not a demon.”

Crowley had long had a habit of watching Aziraphale eat when they dined out together. Aziraphale never minded. Crowley always looked happy when he was watching and Aziraphale was very fond of anything that gave Crowley a moment of peace and genuine happiness, so he never really saw a reason to feel self-conscious about it. 

Being watched by eight Crowleys, on the other hand, was starting to get a little bit unnerving. Only eight because Mary was eating almost as enthusiastically as Aziraphale. 

Crowley had once told him that chewing was uncomfortable as his jaw only looked human. Being faced with a whole trout, steamed in sake, Mary glanced furtively around the restaurant as the other Crowleys subtly leaned together, blocking her from view. After dipping the trout in ponzu sauce, she tipped her head back and popped her chin apart so she could stretch the two halves of her jaw wide enough to swallow the trout whole. Aziraphale smiled, “What do you think?”

Mary smacked her lips and said, “I can taste that!”

Which was odd because Crowley typically didn’t eat very much at all. Indeed, the others just tried a little of everything, then pushed the rest to Mary. That bothered Aziraphale so he pushed it to the edge of his mind while they worked out what to do next. They decided that a play might be good entertainment and decided on a theatre that required a bit of a drive.

“I really should have seen this coming,” Aziraphale sighed.

“Not this again!” Wes said.

Aziraphale nodded, “I’m afraid this might become a habit.” For a few minutes, he watched Coraline and Crowley squabbling over the Bentley. Then he looked back at the other demons, “Perhaps I should show you the advances in public transportation?”

“It was mine first!” Coraline snarled. A bus pulled up at the stop behind the Bentley. Neither of them noticed.

“And I’ve had it the longest!” Crowley barked back. 

“Oh you’re not really going to pull that one on me?! Really?”

“I don’t see why not, it’s nothing less than the truth!” The bus pulled away and drove off down the street. 

“Just because it’s the truth doesn’t make it true!”

“…. Yeah I, I think it kind of does-”

“ANYWAY!”

“ _ANYWAY_ , **you** don’t know what that car has been through! **I** do! Tell her, Angel!” Crowley glanced over his right shoulder. Then glanced again. “Angel?”

They both looked around at the empty sidewalk. “Where’d they go??””

* * * *

“..can’t believe you lost **seven demons** and an angel!”

“ ** _Me?!_** If you just let me drive in the first place-”

“ **Watch the road!** …oh Satan, I sound like Aziraphale…”

“I **am** watching the road! not letting you live that one down. …Fine! We’re here!”

“Fine! They’re probably in the queue to get popcorn.”

The Bentley’s doors slammed at the same time as both demons exited and sauntered into the cinema. Where there was a complete absence of black-clad demons and no cream-coloured angel. Crowley sidled up to the ticket kiosk, “Hi, excuse me, we’re looking for our cousins and my husband, can you tell me if a group of seven Goths and… no? No. …Right. Thank you.” He slid back to Coraline, “They’re not here.”

Coraline closed her eyes for a moment then shook her head, “They’re not in the vicinity either.”

“Fuck..!” Crowley turned on his heel and they both strode back out to the Bentley. He got in behind the wheel then put his fingertips to his forehead and tried to get a read on the angel.

“’Husband?’”

Crowley’s eyes slammed open and shot nervously leftwards. “Um… well… uh… that is…..”

Coraline leaned back against the Bentley’s door and one sceptical black eyebrow lifted above her sunglasses, “Must have been some Apocalypse.”

Crowley blew out a hard breath, “You have no idea.”

“Are we talking Las Vegas style or-”

“We’re not talking about it **at all** because **he’s not here!** ” Crowley barked. 

Coraline sighed, “It feels like they’re moving around a lot but it feels like that direction.”

“….So back in Mayfair.”

“Oh for Satan’s sake…!” Coraline groused. Crowley put the Bentley in gear and pulled away, miraculously missing another bicycle and flipping the forks to its aggravated rider. They were almost back to Mayfair when Coraline suddenly yelped, “Hang on, they’re going that way now! Pretty fast, too!”

Crowley frowned, “There aren’t any bus routes that way.” He found himself heading towards the M25 London Orbital, “This makes no sense, why would he be all the way out here?”

“No idea but, hang on, that way…”

“Where are they going?!”

All over and around London, apparently. There appeared to be little rhyme or reason to the route, passing through residential streets and over motorways. Eventually, they found Aziraphale. He was on a lawn overlooking a long driveway. “Angel!” He looked around at Crowley’s voice and smiled the dazzling 1000-watt smile that never failed to melt the demon(s). “Crowley! You finally caught up!”

“Where the Heaven have you been?!” Crowley demanded, “We’ve been looking all over for you! Why did you disappear?”

“I sent you a text,” Aziraphale said primly. 

Crowley looked at his phone then pinched the bridge of his nose under his glasses, “Did you hit Send?”

Aziraphale took out his own phone and looked at it, “….Possibly not.” And hit Send.

Crowley groaned but shook it off, “Anyways, we’re here now. Where are the others? Why did you leave? How?”

“We took the bus,” Aziraphale smiled, “We realised this was going to become a habit so I took matters into my own hands.”

“Okay fine but why didn’t you go to the cinema like we’d agreed?”

“Look at the text.”

Crowley looked at his phone again and paled, “No! **Angel!** ”

Aziraphale was grinning now, “Your affliction seems to be a recent development. The others have no such inclination, they’ve been quite cooperative and decided to draw lots. And not cheat.”

“You were going all over London…”

“I’ve been teaching them how to drive!”

Coraline gaped, “You **what?** ”

Crowley closed his mouth and shook it off, “Alright, alright, so.. But why are you all the way out **here?** ”

Just then, a Jaguar i-Pace shot down the driveway at speed. Its tyres screeched as it twisted into 180-degree J-turn then sped off back the way it came. Aziraphale beamed, “I bought them some lessons with a high-performance driving instructor!”

“ _ **You bought them a Jag??**_ ” Coraline gasped.

“I leased it,” Aziraphale corrected, “Since we don’t know how long you’ll all be with us. And it’s one of the fancy new battery-powered models! It’s very modern!”

Crowley found his voice again, “ **Why?** ”

“Because they’re _you_ , my dearest,” Aziraphale smiled tenderly, “I knew they’d enjoy it.” The Jag did a power slide across the blacktop, drifted around to face the way it came, and zoomed off again. A cheer went up in the distance. Crowley and Coraline looked at each other helplessly and shrugged.

* * * *

They put the Jaguar behind the Bentley, tucked around the corner from the bookshop, where it was definitely annoying to everyone trying to get down that street. Crowley being Crowley no matter what era, this delighted all of them and they took their time about sauntering towards the bookshop, returning all the bad looks they got with cheeky grins. Aziraphale shook his head and went to unlock the shop door. 

He went to the back room to put the kettle on. Crowley pushed the bookshop door open and sauntered in, followed by Wally, Coraline, Contessa, and the others. They were still laughing and arguing, still teasing Crowley and Coraline when Aziraphale emerged from the back room looking gravely serious. “Crowley,” he said urgently, _sotto voce_ , “There’s another one.”

Crowley sighed, “Which one is it this time? Is it the Paris one? I hope it’s not the Paris one, you were right about the hair…”

“It’s not the Paris one. It’s the one who’s…” Aziraphale trailed off, trying to think of how to phrase this delicately, “-Not a demon.”

The sudden silence was leaden.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale broke off, remembering who he was talking to, “I’m sorry. I get a bit… I’m _very_ fond of Crowley and I just **don’t** think he deserves any of the treatment he’s received.”
> 
> The other angel was smiling that lopsided knowing grin that Crowley sometimes got, “Sounds like quite a guy. When do I get to meet him?”

He was inhumanly beautiful. All ringletty curls blazing auburn, pristine wings, clad in a midnight robe sparkling with stardust, plasma streaming from his warm brown eyes. Aziraphale felt a little bit disappointed by that. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting - cosmic void, spangled with stars, perhaps? - but after thousands of years of gazing into Crowley’s beautiful golden serpent’s eyes, brown felt rather… plain. 

_”Oh,” Crowley’s tone was leaden, “This… this time it’ll work.”_

_”What do you mean, my dear?” asked Aziraphale, “If you were supposed to look back on your past failures and feel embarrassed?”_

_The look on Crowley’s face was haunting. “This is… this is worse. This is… Look at it from a human perspective,” he said, not looking at Aziraphale, “Nobody wants to face their teenage self, full of dreams and, and wanting to become a, a marine biologist or something, and have to tell them you’re just a secretary or you could never find a job in your field and you’re still working at Banana Republic fifteen years later.”_

_”Oh, I see.”_

_”Only this is worse. It hasn’t happened yet. He doesn’t even know what Falling means.”_

_Aziraphale nodded seriously. He stepped forward to clasp Crowley’s hand. “I see. Perhaps if I talk to him first, then.”_

“Are you with me so far?”

The other angel nodded slowly, “Big fight. Lots of people cast out, I was one of them. Why?”

Aziraphale clasped his hands and sighed, “I don’t know. He’s never actually told me the details and I’ve never attempted to pry. All he’s told me is that he only asked questions. However, I’ve known Crowley for a very long time now and he tends to ask rather pointed questions, and given the direction that Heaven has taken since then, I suspect that he may have been asking the kinds of questions that certain people in the upper management didn’t want anyone thinking about.”

The other angel sat back and scratched his chin thoughtfully. “Yeahhhhh, that sounds like me,” he said at last.

Aziraphale sipped his tea. “I’ve long suspected that he didn’t so much Fall as…. was pushed.” 

The other angel nodded. “You’re probably not wrong about that, to be honest,” he sighed, “There’s been some stuff going on with the other seven that’s just…..” He scratched his perfect nails through his brilliant hair, “I’ve had questions…. And I’m not the only one, either, Raph’s _supposed_ to be a healer! … Yeah… I can see it going sour like that.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Not sure I’d want to stick around, if it keeps going the way it’s been.”

Aziraphale sighed, “I can’t disagree with you there. But there was nowhere else to go. The alternative was… not really any better.”

“Six of one, half a dozen of the other?” Aziraphale nodded and the other angel scratched his chin again. “And you think I was pushed.”

Aziraphale spread his hands helplessly, “Crowley served Hell because he had no other choice. What else could he do? No demon has ever been allowed back into Heaven. I had hoped after-… but that didn’t happen.”

“After?”

“A… certain event. A certain teacher whom I was certain could make the difference.. He taught forgiveness and Crowley was close to him and I thought for sure that if anyone.. If _any_ demon deserves it, it’s Crowley, he’s so… His **job** is to tempt people into doing terrible things to damn their souls because that’s what demons have to do and he’s terribly wily at it and he likes to think he’s a bit of a, a bad-ass and doesn’t care about anything but he’s **actually** he’s a big softy and he loves people and he _cares_ because that’s who he **is** and he-” Aziraphale broke off, remembering who he was talking to, “I’m sorry. I get a bit… I’m _very_ fond of Crowley and I just **don’t** think he deserves any of the treatment he’s received.”

The other angel was smiling that lopsided knowing grin that Crowley sometimes got, “Sounds like quite a guy. When do I get to meet him?”

“Whenever you’re ready and… they’re ready,” Aziraphale added conscientiously, “They’re all a bit apprehensive, I must warn you. They’re a bit afraid that you’ll be… _disappointed_ in them, shall we say.”

“Well, after a build-up like that, how can I be?” the other angel scoffed, “Because what **I** heard was, One, I’m right, things **are** going the way I think they’re going, and Two, I got caught in that net, picked myself up and did what I needed to do to keep going, keep surviving, and keep the spark alive, because it’s dying in Heaven and dead in this Hell place and you and I still have it, am I right?” 

Aziraphale stared at him. “I certainly cannot say that any of that is wrong,” he said at last.

“Nor can I,” said Crowley. Aziraphale looked up and one thousand watts of joy spread across his face in a dazzling smile. Crowley couldn’t help but smile back, feeling himself melting as he always did under that particular onslaught.

The other angel looked back and forth between them then grinned, “ **Oh yeah** , I’m right!” He bounced up to look at Crowley. Brown eyes met gold, one gaze open and interested, the other guarded. The silence stretched out between them. Finally, the angel stretched out one long, slender finger to touch Crowley’s nose and said, “Boop!”

Crowley blinked. “Did you just **boop** me?!”

“You were listening,” the angel snickered, “I saw your face while he was talking about you. You mouthed ‘this is slander.’” Crowley cringed and the angel laughed, “Anyways I’m told you know why I’m here?”

“I _suspect_ ,” Crowley corrected, “I _think_ you’re here to be embarrassed by _us_ and we’re supposed to feel humiliated.”

The angelic one raised a sceptical eyebrow, “Really? Has anybody met me?” He gave Crowley a once-over and smirked, “Because the only thing I see to be embarrassed about is that hair.”

“Oi!” The angel laughed and Crowley shook his head. “It’s alright, guys,” he called over his shoulder, “It’s alright.” 

Slowly, one by one, the other demons slunk into the room and were introduced. The angel looked at them all then back at Crowley, “And they’re **all** me? You?”

“From different parts of my lifetime, yeah,” Crowley nodded, “We think it might be some kind of punishment. I’m supposed to look back on all my mistakes and feel shame or something, I guess.”

“Ohhhh,” the angel said suddenly, “Then… I guess someone found out about the baseball.”

“Baseball, what baseball, oh **that** baseball,” said Crowley.

Wally frowned, “How could anyone find out about the baseball? You can’t _see_ it!”

“Right?!” the angel rounded on him, “I kept telling them that was a major design flaw! Design an object that absorbs all light, yeah sure it looks great on paper but put into practice?” Suddenly they were all groaning in agreement and adding their own litany of complaints about the Department of Cosmic Engineering. Aziraphale looked over at Crowley and smiled. 

* * * *

They had decided to call him Starr. It was a toss-up between that and Angelo but Starr won out because they all called Aziraphale ‘Angel’ and didn’t want to get confused. 

“Well…. I must say, his wings are… terribly unique, with those vermilion pinions,” Aziraphale commented, pulling a tray of biscuits out of the bookshop’s oven. Crowley was sullenly silent. Aziraphale cocked an eyebrow at him and came over to stand beside him. “How much of this do you remember?” he asked quietly.

“Bits and pieces, here and there,” Crowley replied just as quietly, “But I don’t remember _this_ , not at all. Not _him._ ”

Aziraphale nodded thoughtfully. “He was much less confused than I expected. And…he wasn’t upset. Even after I explained the Fall. I expected he’d be quite distressed but he just said it confirmed what he’d already been thinking. But he wasn’t surprised. And… he wasn’t surprised that he was - will be - caught up in it.” Crowley’s frown turned thoughtful. 

Aziraphale decided to change the subject. “What’s going on with Mary? Only, I’ve _never_ seen you eat that much and she’s consuming as much as I do. Is she alright?”

“No,” Crowley said quietly, “No, she’s not alright.”

When he didn’t elaborate, Aziraphale said hesitantly, “Some species consume in quantity when they’re… gravid…” He swallowed, “You’ve never mentioned who Adam’s mother was…”

If Crowley had been drinking anything, he would have sprayed it. “No! No no no, Angel, no!” he gasped out, “She’s not pregnant, for H… for somewhere’s sake..! She’s…” He drew in a sharp breath and let it out slowly. “Look, it’s… you were right. You were right that I changed and she’s… The others gave her advanced warning. She’s preparing for it.”

“Preparing for… what, exactly?”

Crowley wished he had whiskey or wine. Lacking both, he picked up Aziraphale’s tea and took a sip. “I told you I showed him all the kingdoms of the world,” he said in a low voice.

“Yes.”

“That was supposed to be part of a temptation. They wanted to sway him to our side. So they sent me.”

“Naturally,” Aziraphale agreed, “You’re one of their best. I’ve always said so.”

“I did it my usual way. He wanted to travel.”

Aziraphale nodded again, “You always let the humans tell you what trouble they can be led into. You once told me, you show them the door, they decide whether to walk through it or not. You’ve never had to brute-force a temptation. I’ve always admired that about you. It’s what made you such a challenging adversary.”

“That was the thing,” Crowley said slowly, “Hell decided that I should have brute-forced it. Brute-forced it, planted it in his mind, anything to get him to turn.”

Aziraphale sniffed, “If they wanted someone to do **that** then they shouldn’t have sent _you._ ”

“That’s what I said,” Crowley growled, “But they decided I muffed it up. The second most-important temptation in history and I muffed it.”

“You most certainly did not! I’ve read the accounts. You showed him the doors, he chose not to walk through. That’s his free will. You did it exactly as you should.”

“Hell didn’t see it that way. They wanted a scapegoat. They saw it as I failed and they punished me. And I told you before, my lot do not send sharp notes!”

“No,” Aziraphale said in a gentler tone, “Apparently they did something that Mary needs to consume large quantities of food to prepare for.”

“She needs it to build layers of skin,” Crowley said after a moment, “They peeled me, over and over. I don’t remember _how_ I knew I needed to build skin up but I was glad I did. They shaved me and stripped my skin off, layer after layer. For eight years.”

“Oh my dear….”

Crowley took another deep swig of Aziraphale’s tea. “Then they changed their minds. They dragged me out, dressed me, and sent me back topside. Sent me to Rome in the stupidest get-up imaginable with a shite mission briefing, told me if I didn’t get this one right, I’d be destroyed.” He took another swallow, avoiding Aziraphale’s eyes, “And then that one went south too. The whole mission was a complete fiasco, thanks to crap intel.”

“And then you walked into a tavern,” Aziraphale said with a little smile.

“Yeah.” Crowley was silent for a moment. “I went there to get blind drunk before I… had to report.” Then he snorted, “As it was, I went back and reported a successful temptation. …Just didn’t mention it was successfully tempting an angel to a lunch he’d already invited me to…”

“Well, one can’t be too choosy when it comes to successful temptations,” Aziraphale teased, wiggling a little. Then his tone and expression softened, “Something Starr said, after I described you a bit… He said what he heard was that you did what it took to survive and keep your spark. I think I know what he means by that but, in any case… It’s something else I think I’ve always admired about you. I have met other demons, you know, and they’re not like you at all. But it seemed to me that, well, that they tried to make you like them. Around Rome, I mean. And it had lingering effects, which as I said, I noticed. But nevertheless, they didn’t succeed. Somehow, you still managed to hold onto that spark.”

“That’s because of you, Angel,” Crowley whispered.

Aziraphale’s smile was tender candlelight. “What’s he’s doing now?”

“He seems to be interviewing them, almost,” Crowley sounded a bit puzzled. 

“Yes. He was quite eager to meet all of you. I suppose it’s natural to be curious about one’s future but still, it did seem a little bit odd.”

“And he’s not surprised,” Crowley mused.

“Not like the other ones were when they first arrived, no.” Aziraphale frowned, “He didn’t even seem intimidated by the technology.”

Crowley frowned, “The world hadn’t existed yet, you’d think he would be.”

Aziraphale bit his lips, “Hmm.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It’s not _all_ bad. There were a lot of good times too. And Aziraphale, that’s **always** fun. You’re going to love Aziraphale.”
> 
> “I’m looking forward to that. That’s really an angel? He doesn’t seem like one, he’s too… I dunno, nice?”
> 
> Crowley threw back his head and laughed. “Yeahhhh, he’s gotten really **good** at hiding the bastard bits, hasn’t he? Still there, though, they come out from time to time but for the most part, he’s got everyone fooled, even himself.”

fneeeeeee **fweeeeeeeee** sneeeeeeeee _wheeeeeeeeee_ zeeeeeeeeee

Aziraphale lay stretched out on his couch with a glass of wine beside him and several demon snakes curled up on his lap. Across from him, Starr sat in Aziraphale’s usual armchair, staring with rapt fascination at the heap of red-bellied black bodies. 

“What did you say they were called, again?”

“Snakes,” Aziraphale replied, “They were turned into one when they Fell. I’m afraid I don’t know the details. I don’t know how or why, but it happened before they were sent to the garden at Eden.”

“Huh!” Starr sat back, never taking his eyes off the snakes. He looked impressed rather than repelled. “And they change into that, like that? All the time?”

Aziraphale chuckled, “Oh yes, quite often. Crowley prefers his human shape, of course, but his snake shape is very useful sometimes.”

“It’s pretty,” Starr said.

Aziraphale tipped his head and decided to confront the elephant in the room, “You don’t seem to be surprised by any of this.”

Starr immediately sat back and reached for his own glass, expression clouding in that mixture of innocence and guilt that Crowley had so often worn, “Well… I mean…” Aziraphale’s gaze did not waver. “I had to see what I was getting into…”

Aziraphale’s eyebrow shot up. “You said that Crowley had preserved the ‘spark’ and that only he and I still had it. You meant the spark of selfhood, yes?”

Starr looked up, surprised, “Oh, no! Not that! I mean, yes, but no, that wasn’t what I was referring to. I meant love!”

Aziraphale paused with his glass halfway to his lips and arched an eyebrow, “…Explain?”

“Love!” Starr said with enthusiasm, “Heaven thinks it’s like a noun, right? It’s a thing, right? The love of God?”

Aziraphale pursed his lips to consider it. He drained his glass and set it back down. “I suppose that’s one way to look at it.”

“But here’s the thing - I think it’s a verb! I think it’s something you _do!_ ”

Aziraphale stared at him, remembering that he was some six thousand years older than this angel and had experience of a world that hadn’t even been created yet, let alone populated. And yet… He hadn’t thought of it like that, before, that Heaven thought of love only as a noun, but that did seem to be in line with the way Heaven treated it. Like it was a trophy to be awarded only to the worthy. And those they’d deemed unworthy of it… “That does make some sense of Heaven’s behaviour,” he said at last, “Heaven believes that demons are unworthy of love and believes them to be incapable of love as well.”

Starr frowned, “Is that… true?”

Aziraphale shook his head, “I don’t believe so. It doesn’t line up with my experience of demons, even the ones who aren’t Crowley. They form relationships and friendships, even if they won’t admit to it.”

“Why wouldn’t they admit to it?”

“Because they believe the same thing, that they’re incapable.”

“Ah, right,” Starr nodded, “But you said Crowley cares?”

Aziraphale regarded the unmoving snakes in his lap again, lightly stroking the black scales with another tender smile, “Oh yes, he cares very much. He lost none of his love or his compassion when he Fell, even if he might have lost his Grace.”

“…He’s clumsy?”

Aziraphale chuckled, “The concept doesn’t translate very well, does it?” He said a word in a language he hadn’t truly spoken since, well, since a few years after he left Eden, really. “But I have reason to believe he didn’t fully lose _that_ either.”

“Why?”

Aziraphale paused, weighing whether he should admit to this or not. But if Crowley didn’t remember… “Most demons can’t bless,” he said finally.

Starr’s eyes gleamed strangely. He looked utterly delighted. He leaned forward, conspiratorial, giving Aziraphale instant memories of Wally leaning forward the same way to whisper his doubts. “You know what I think?” he purred in the same low voice that was so, so familiar, “I think God might be a verb, too!”

“…Oh!” Aziraphale was glad he had put his glass down or else he might have dropped it. Starr sat back, grinning. “So.. Then… what you were ‘getting into’…”

“Got offered a mission,” Starr admitted. Aziraphale stared, thunderstruck. So many little dominoes were slamming into place. “Wanted to see if it was worth taking.” So much about Crowley was making sense. 

“So… all of these… were your doing?” Aziraphale managed, waving his hand over the slumbering snakes.

“Well, um… not _exactly_ …”

“I see. Well… Dear fellow, could I trouble you to fetch another bottle for us? Through the door and to the right you’ll find the shelves. Choose any one you like.”

“Yeah, sure!” Starr said.

As soon as he was gone, Aziraphale tipped his cheek towards the snake nestled beneath his ear and whispered, “Well now, what do you make of that?”

“That stuff about verbs… It rings a bell,” Crowley whispered, “Dimly. Very dimly, but it is ringing a bell.”

“Is this one all right? I don’t know one from the other,” Starr said, coming back with another dusty wine bottle, “I like this stuff though!”

“Yes, we both took to it **very** quickly after the humans invented it,” Aziraphale chuckled. He uncorked the bottle and poured two more glasses. “This mission,” he said casually, “Was it to be the eyes and ears of God in Hell, perhaps?”

Starr **stared** at him. “Well that didn’t take you long,” he muttered.

“I _have_ known Crowley for over six thousand years,” Aziraphale chuckled, “And that _would_ make sense. And of course, in such an environment, with a mission like that… you would need to… not remember.”

“That’s why I wanted to find out for myself,” Starr agreed quietly, “I wanted to find out for myself whether it was worth it.”

“And… what did you decide?”

Starr blew out his lips in a way that was so, so familiar. “Well… Look at you. Right? You’re sitting there all,” he wove his hands in the air, “Doing love, am I right?”

Aziraphale sighed sadly, a hand rising to stroke the snakes adorning him, “It took six thousand years to reach this point.”

“But you got there,” Starr pressed.

“We got there,” Aziraphale conceded, “At an enormous cost.”

Starr leaned forward, “And is that cost worth it?”

Aziraphale stared at him. Then he looked down at the snakes, wheezing their tiny little wheezy snores, and had to smile. “Yes,” he said finally, “Yes it is.”

Starr sat back, “And what about you, Oldest Me who’s been pretending to be asleep?”

Whoops. Crowley raised his head and slowly slid down Aziraphale’s arm, pouring himself into his human form as he reached the floor. “I bloody played myself, didn’t I.”

“Did you?” Starr gazed back steadily, “That’s what I came to find out. I’m facing giving up everything I am right now, to become you, for the sake of this mission.”

“So all of this is, what… _recruitment?_ ” He tipped his head up and bellowed, “We’re just a bloody _Powerpoint presentation_ to You, is that what it is?”

“He’s prone to occasional fits of yelling at the sky,” Aziraphale sighed, “You just have to let it run its course.”

Starr giggled and scratched the back of his head, “Yeah I do that a lot.”

Crowley looked back at Aziraphale, on the couch with a fresh glass of wine, covered in snakes. Snakes chosen from significant times - When they first met; when he threw himself behind his own beliefs; when they truly became friends; when his life changed drastically; when he learned what he was truly capable of… the Bentley, the Apocalypse… and Aziraphale, always Aziraphale, always caring, always shelter from the storm, always steady, always challenging and inspiring, always there to need and be needed by. To love and be loved by. “Y’know, only a few years ago, I would have said it wasn’t worth it,” he admitted. 

“Tell me now,” Starr’s voice was quiet. 

Crowley tipped back his head to look at him, eyes gold with slit pupils meeting brown eyes streaming plasma. “You tell me,” he said just as quietly, “Why’s there no one after the 14th Century until 2007?”

Starr’s grin was wide and mischievous. Then he leaned forward and whispered in Crowley’s ear. 

Crowley’s golden eyes went wide, “ _Oh!_ ” He snapped back to stare at the younger angel, who grinned wider.

Then his smile faded sadly. “I have to go soon,” he said. He looked at Aziraphale, “And so do they. They said you have to have them back before the alarm goes off in ten days. What’s a day?”

“A way of measuring linear time in the world,” Aziraphale smiled, “A complete cycle of light and night.”

“’Night,’” Starr said wistfully. He looked at the window, where night blanketed the buildings of Soho, “Are there still stars?”

Crowley exchanged a look with Aziraphale, who nodded, then he led Starr through the bookshop door, into the street. “Hard to see, here,” Crowley said, “The city lights drown them out but they’re still there.”

Starr looked up, then looked around. A few people walked through the pools of light and shadow further down the street. “And that’s them, is it?” he asked in a low voice, “The humans? I’ve only seen the specs, They’ve only talked about them so far.”

“That’s them,” Crowley nodded. A siren whooped in the distance. 

“They don’t look like much, do they? Yet they’ve done all this?”

Crowley nodded again, “‘Course, it only reached _this_ point in the last hundred and twenty years, thereabouts.”

Starr nodded and looked around again. ”I’m scared.”

Crowley’s voice was soft, “You’re still going through with it? Even knowing all of this?”

Starr nodded again. “You said, ‘until a few years ago’, you didn’t think it was worth it. So something happened a few years ago that changed that and now you think it is, am I right?”

Crowley couldn’t help the smile that stole onto his face. “Yeah,” he said finally, “Yeah, you’re right.” He looked around, stuffing his hands into his pockets, “This is the World, the whole project finally up and running. Can you believe Heaven and Hell wanted to burn it all down? Just to find out who could burn the most.”

“Did They put a stop to that?”

Crowley snorted, “Aziraphale and I did! …..sort of…..”

Starr grinned, “So They **did** put a stop to it.”

“….with some help…y’know…from the Antichrist and all that…”

“No idea what that is,” Starr shook his head, staring up at the few stars visible through the London light pollution, “If there’s an Anti-christ, is there a christ? What is a christ, anyways?”

“Quite a nice fellow, really,” Crowley said, also staring up at the sky, “Mind you, so’s the Antichrist, he’s quite a nice young boy. Swotty little brat right now but only dangerous to Old Man Tyler’s apples.”

They looked at each other, chewing their lips in the same way, at the same time. “I was afraid I’d.. Lose… y’know… everything,” Starr whispered, “Like I wouldn’t be ‘me’ anymore.”

“A lot got stripped away,” Crowley admitted, “But there’s a lot that stayed. Stars. The baseball. Yelling at the sky.”

Starr grinned, “Never stop yelling at the sky.”

“Figure someone has to,” Crowley sighed, “Maybe one day They’ll start answering again.”

”I have to go now,” Starr whispered. 

Crowley nodded. They turned to face each other then Starr stepped forward and embraced him. “I remember a lot more, now,” he admitted.

“Good,” Starr breathed, “That’s good, that’s… good.”

“It’s not _all_ bad. There were a lot of good times too. And Aziraphale, that’s **always** fun. You’re going to love Aziraphale.”

“I’m looking forward to that. That’s really an angel? He doesn’t seem like one, he’s too… I dunno, nice?”

Crowley threw back his head and laughed. “Yeahhhh, he’s gotten really **good** at hiding the bastard bits, hasn’t he? Still there, though, they come out from time to time but for the most part, he’s got everyone fooled, even himself.”

“There’s a trick,” Starr grinned. 

“Do you need… I assume you need the portal, since you arrived in the bookshop…”

Starr shook his head, “Naw.” He tipped his head back to yell at the sky, **”Alright, I’ll do it!”** He squeezed Crowley one more time then stepped back.

He spread his wings, speckled with black and white iridescent feathers, vermilion pinions glowing. Then his halo spread out around him, hundreds of eyes scintillating in a rainbow of iridescent colour like a peacock’s tail. It shook once and thunder pierced the clear night. When the echoes died away, he was gone. 

Crowley turned and walked back into the warmth of the bookshop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am deeply indebted to [fenrislorsrai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fenrislorsrai/pseuds/fenrislorsrai) and their fic [_A Bit Snug_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19259320) for the concept, "To Heaven ‘love’ was a noun, never a verb." That sparked one heck of a fun rabbit hole. Go give them some love!


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale’s voice went very tender as he stroked Crowley’s hair. “You’ve just received many answers, dear Crowley. The real reason why you Fell… And I don’t think **this** was a punishment, either,” he gestured to the snakes, “I think it was to say ‘Mission accomplished. Well done.’”

Aziraphale stood near the couch with a bottle of scotch. He sat back down, carefully arranging his sneklaces and making room for Crowley to sit beside him. He poured two glasses of scotch and handed one to Crowley. “It seems that you were right - you **have** been doing God’s work all along,”Aziraphale said, “How are you doing?”

“Remembering more,” Crowley said, “Bit of a shock.”

“What did he say? When you asked him why there were none from between the 14th Century and the 21st?”

Crowley smiled a little, “He said, ‘God is a verb.’”

Aziraphale nodded, “Ahh — the Arrangement.”

“Yeah. That’s what I figure too. When we really started making things happen.”

“It’s true, the Renaissance period did start not too long after, didn’t it?”

“Mmm.”

They drank together in silence. Aziraphale coaxed Crowley to lie down with his head in his lap, gently nudging the snoring snakes around. Crowley settled with his arm around Bear and Contessa and Roman across his chest. “Another ten days,” Aziraphale said, “Doesn’t really seem long enough for a proper holiday, does it? I still wonder if we’re being cruel.”

Crowley sighed, closing his eyes briefly. “It felt like a dream,” he said finally, “But it was enough to get me through to the next… point, I guess.”

“But you don’t… really remember this?”

“Not like I remember other things. It felt like… prophetic dreams, really. It was interesting going through the 20th Century and realising we were getting closer to what I was dreaming about, thousands of years ago.”

“Fascinating,” Aziraphale stroked his fingers through Crowley’s hair and up along Wally’s scales. 

After a few minutes, Crowley said softly, “Why are you being like this, Angel?”

Aziraphale seemed to know what he meant. He was silent for several more moments. “I’ve wanted to do this for thousands of years,” he said finally, “But I didn’t dare, knowing what Heaven and Hell would do to you if they found out. And given what they _did_ do to us, it wasn’t an unfounded fear. But now, here you all are. Now I can give you all the love and affection I wanted to give to you, all those times.”

“I noticed you’re being extra affectionate to Wally and Mary.”

“Yes. Wally, well, the poor dear’s never **had** any affection, has he?”

“Not until you put your wing over me.”

“And he’d only just met me when he was plucked out of his time. So… I never knew how long it was after…. Well, I suppose I just felt you deserved some kindness, after that.”

“I don’t think any other angel ever thought the way you do, Angel.”

“Yes, well… you had no reason to come up and make polite conversation with an angel, did you? But there you were.”

“There I was.”

“And now I know why.”

“Hm?”

“Did you happen to notice his sword?”

Crowley looked puzzled for a moment then his eyes widened, “ _OH!_ **Right!** They asked me to give it up, said I wouldn’t need it any more!”

“And then gave it to me, with instructions to guard the gate of Eden.” Abruptly Aziraphale smiled, “That _would_ explain why She was so anxious about what I’d done with it — She must have worried you wouldn’t find me without it!”

Crowley frowned, “You think I was supposed to find you?”

Aziraphale looked inexplicably cagey, “Why else would She give me your sword? Crowley, She summoned me personally and personally gave me your sword. I cannot think but that She hoped you would recognise it.”

“The angel I would do love with and do… God with,” Crowley murmured thoughtfully. 

Aziraphale nodded. “I never heard from Her again, after that.”

“No, They stopped talking to _anybody_ , nobody’s getting any answers now.”

Aziraphale sipped his wine with a little smile, “Well, you can’t say that anymore.”

“I can’t?”

Aziraphale’s voice went very tender as he stroked Crowley’s hair. “You’ve just received many answers, dear Crowley. The real reason why you Fell… And I don’t think **this** was a punishment, either,” he gestured to the snakes, “I think it was to say ‘Mission accomplished. Well done.’”

Crowley wished he had his sunglasses to hide the sudden swell of tears. He turned and pressed his face into Aziraphale’s hip to hide the tears.

“Well done, my dear beloved,” Aziraphale whispered, stroking his hair, “Well done.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley smirked, “Anyways, Aziraphale and I thought it’d be fun to take you all to the British Museum, how does that sound?”
> 
> “What’s a ‘British Museum?’” 
> 
> “Well, for us, it’s a walk down memory lane. For you two, eh, about half memory lane, half this is what you get to play with in the future.”

When Crowley woke up, he was surprised to find that he was the one covered in snoring snake demons. He was also quite snug. He lifted his head from the pillow and looked around to see that only a few of the demons were snake-shaped; the others were still human-shaped, snuggling each other and him, sound asleep. 

He put his head back down on the pillow. A lot of humans didn’t like themselves and if Crowley had thought about it much, he might have said the same thing. But… he had to admit, he’d been having quite a lot of fun over the past week. If only they weren’t _quite_ so annoying… But he had to grin - annoying people was what Crowley was best at! 

_sneeeeeeee_ **heeeeeeeee** heeeeeeeeeeee _fweeeeeeeeee_

Of course, now he… couldn’t deny that he snored anymore. That was the worst part, really. 

Gently he nudged the sleeping snakes off of his chest and untangled himself from the demons still in human form and slid carefully out of the bed. He gazed down at them fondly - poor guys, it’d be hundreds, for some, thousands, of years before they’d get this bed. Worth waiting for, though. He went to water the plants then went to the window and looked out at the world, scratching his chest. He glanced down, ready to miracle the boot off of the Bentley’s tyre as usual. 

The Bentley was gone. 

Crowley stared for a moment then whirled around and went to count the snakes in the bed. There were two missing. But Coraline was curled up with Wes on her chest which meant that whomever was driving the Bentley was _not_ its usual experienced driver!!! Crowley felt his chest start to heave. He counted the snakes again, trying to work out who the missing pair were, when the flat door opened. He rushed out into the hall, to see Tempest and Mary sauntering in carrying cardboard trays of paper cups. 

“Hello!” Tempest beamed, “We brought some of that ‘cofni’ stuff!”

“’Coffee,’” Crowley said absently, looking out of the window to see the Bentley back in its usual illegal spot. He turned back to Tempest and snarled, “You took my _Bentley_?”

“You and Coraline keep fighting over it, we wanted to see what all the fuss was about.”

“We were very careful with it,” Mary added.

“Not a scratch!”

“And you wore **that?!** ” Crowley scowled, incredulous, “In **my** Bentley?!”

Tempest looked down at his black t-shirt with the unicorn in pink and silver glitter. He looked back up with a wicked grin, “Problem?”

“It’s _glitter!_ I’ll never get it all out! I’m going to be finding glitter in my car for the next five hundred years!”

“That sounds like a ‘you’ problem,” Tempest snickered.

“Why the hell would you-”

“Demon!”

“Oh _fuck off!_ ”

Mary doubled over laughing and handed Crowley a paper cup. “Your car is fine, just drink your cofni.” 

Crowley bared his teeth at her but took the cup. “I regret being you,” he growled.

Tempest clutched his chest theatrically, “Oh that hurt! That hurts! Mary, he hurt me!”

“What’re you crying to me for? It was your glitter!”

“It was your idea to go out for cofni.”

“I just thought it’d be n—* nng— …. _Shit!_ ”

“A- **HA!** ”

“I could listen to this all day,” Crowley smirked, “Anyways, Aziraphale and I thought it’d be fun to take you all to the British Museum, how does that sound?”

“What’s a ‘British Museum?’”

“Well, for us, it’s a walk down memory lane. For you two, eh, about half memory lane, half this is what you get to play with in the future.”

“Sounds like fun,” Mary said. 

* * * *

“They’re all _stolen?_ ”

The people around them turned to stare at them and the museum staff fumed. Crowley grinned widely, “Yeah! But they don’t like it when you **say** it!”

“They also don’t like it when you get glitter on them,” Aziraphale said. Tempest grinned innocently. 

Every. Single. Room. They’d been in had small specks of glitter left in it. Crowley was 90% certain that Tempest was miracling glitter _inside_ the exhibit containers themselves. He was certain there was more glitter left in the rooms than was actually on the t-shirt. Aziraphale objected very mildly, mostly out of principle. All of the other Crowleys were enjoying the looks of impotent hostility on the museum staff. Because Tempest wasn’t actually touching anything or doing anything to _put_ the glitter anywhere so the staff couldn’t actually ask him to leave.

Tempest had instantly grasped the best ways to use the irritation potential in glitter and Crowley couldn’t be more proud.

Frankly, neither could Aziraphale.

“Oh! Oh! These! You remember Krampus?”

Bear nodded, “One of Mammon’s, wasn’t he?”

“Right! Remember that guy he was tempting, the copper merchant? He was tempting him with Greed, remember?”

“Er, dimly, yeah?”

“No?”

“Well after you, Wally. Anyhow, come look at these!”

They clustered around the exhibit of clay tablets inscribed with cuneiform writing, which Bear read aloud for them. Halfway through Tempest looked up at Crowley, “Oh no!” Crowley beamed and nodded and Bear continued. When he was finished, they all fell about laughing.

“Five **thousand** years later, they **still** remember Ea-Nasir!”

“Oh my Satan…!”

“Because the old crook kept **hundreds** of these things in his storeroom!” Aziraphale chuckled, “He kept all of his complaint letters!”

Bear blinked, “That’s… that’s… wow.”

“What happened to old Krampus, anyways?” Wes asked, “Last I heard, he was trying to get a foothold on the Yuletide gig?”

“Yeah, he did it, too, Krampusnacht! Kept himself going right up until the early 20th Century when they tried to stamp him out,” said Crowley.

“Good old humans though,” Coraline added, “Always nostalgic for the old days. Late 1990s come along, everyone gets nostalgic for the old Krampusnacht traditions and _boom!_ \- guess who’s back!”

“ _And then_ , he got a movie about him and now he’s going global!”

Coraline gaped, “What, seriously?!”

“You gotta hand it to old Krampy, that demon knows how to market himself!”

The little party continued on until they reached the touring display. “Ah! This is very interesting,” Aziraphale beamed, “I’ve been looking forward to this.”

Crowley frowned, “Didn’t you see this already at that museum in Austria?”

“Of course! But Bear is here.”

Bear looked up from a display, “Huh? Me?”

“Yes, dear boy! Come and look! I imagine it’s rather fresh in your mind.”

“Yeah, I was thinking the cut of that tunic looked Alpine.”

“Do you remember, when you found me on the glacier, I was travelling with a companion?”

“Yeah, he was shot and killed, right? Wait, what are you saying? Is this **him?** ”

“The South Tyrol Museum sent some of his artifacts and clothes on tour but the body is a replica. The actual body is too fragile to tour,” Aziraphale explained.

Bear stared at the replica body, “And he’s… preserved like that?”

“You remember there was a storm right after you brought me to your house? It buried him. He stayed buried and frozen for five thousand years.”

“He’s looking pretty good for five thousand years,” Roman quipped. 

Aziraphale grinned at him. “It’s the cold. Wonderful preservative.”

“Yeah, you should see the top of Mount Everest,” Crowley grinned.

“Oh don’t even bring up Mount Everest,” Aziraphale winced. “Chomolungma,” he clarified for the others. 

Wes nodded, “Oh yeah, that place.” He blinked, “Wait, are you saying there’s _dead people_ way up there?”

“Lots of them,” Crowley grinned viciously, “They climb up there, right up to the top, but the air’s too thin and it’s too cold, so a lot of them die, but they can’t bring the bodies back, so they have to just leave them there.”

Contessa stared, “I’m still stuck on ‘humans are climbing Chomolungma.’”

“Oh yeah! Crowds of them! Once one’s done it, the rest of them all gotta pile in! There’s whole chains of them striding up there!”

“Crowley is **greatly** oversimplifying the actual danger involved,” Aziraphale sniffed, “Many of those who live sustain lasting injuries.”

“But…they don’t get smacked down by…?”

“No more than they do for the towers,” Crowley shrugged, “Yeah I know, I don’t get it either. Tempest, **how** did you get glitter all over the Elgin Marbles?”

Tempest blinked innocently, “Did I?”

“Greece will probably use that as evidence that the British Museum can’t properly care for them,” Coraline snickered.

Aziraphale smirked, “The British Museum has been saying that for years, as an excuse not to return them to Greece.”

“Even after the Greeks made a special place for them in their Parthenon museum.”

Tempest grinned then blinked, “Shit, are you saying I might have done the right thing _again?_ ”

“That does seem to be your M.O, my dear,” Aziraphale chuckled, “You pretty much invented doing the right thing for the wrong reasons.”

Tempest groaned and the others either nodded ruefully, looked embarrassed, or grinned cheekily. Then Wes looked around, “Did we lose someone? Where’s Wally?”

They found Wally in the Egyptian gallery, staring at the Rosetta Stone. Rather, he was staring at the Rosetta Stone, then at an interpretive digital display. He stared around himself, at room, at the people, and his expression was… hard to define. “Wally?” Crowley said softly, “Are you alright?”

Wally didn’t answer for several minutes. “The last time I saw them,” he whispered, “They had just been thrown out into the desert, wearing only a few leaves. They killed a lion then they had to figure out how to skin it, so they could have something for shelter.” He looked around at the room again, “And then they built all of this. They went from this-” he gestured to the Rosetta Stone tablet, “To this-” he gestured at the museum and the digital displays and the people reading interpretive text on their mobile phones, “In only six thousand years?”

“Less than,” Crowley agreed, just as softly, “Bit of a shock for you, though.”

“Just a bit, yeah,” Wally nodded.

Crowley patted his shoulder with a fond smile, “C’mon. Let’s go get something to drink. Aziraphale says he’s lined us up a time slot at a race track tomorrow.”

“Oo! We go fast?”

“ **Very** fast!”

* * * *

They had adjourned to Crowley’s favourite pub and conversation drifted (again) to how much pubs, taverns, and drinking houses changed over the centuries. Wally had been staring fixedly at one of the tellies with a puzzled frown.

“What’s got your attention, Wally?” said Crowley.

Wally gestured with his beer glass with a frown, “Just the… magic window up there, there’s all these tiny humans dressed in coloured clothes just sort of… milling about. I can’t figure out what they’re meant to be doing.”

Crowley turned around. “Oh yeah, there’s a cricket match today, isn’t there. Forgot about that.”

“’Match?’”

“They’re playing a game called cricket,” said Aziraphale, “They do it for fun. It’s an organised sport, rather a lot of rules to it.”

Wally frowned at the telly over the bar, “It looks like they’re just running back and forth.”

“They are. They’re called ‘runs.’”

Wes frowned, “What, you mean like…?”

“No, although I wouldn’t be at all surprised if that’s where the term originated,” Aziraphale smirked, “But no, it’s simply because they run back and forth. Each back-and-forth pass is called a run.”

They all watched a little longer, then Tempest shook his head, “So, the fellow with the stick hits a ball and they just run back and forth between those little… things?”

“Wickets, yes,” Aziraphale nodded, “The stick is called a bat and the fellow using it is called a batter. If the other team catch the ball, the batter is ‘out’, so he wants to hit the ball very hard and very far, so that he and his partner can run back and forth as many times as possible.”

“What for?”

“That’s how they score points in the game.”

They watched some more. “Oh, they broke his… wicket thingy!” Wes exclaimed.

Aziraphale nodded, “Yes, that batter is now ‘out.’ He’s been ‘bowled’, as they say.”

“…Do they?”

“In the game, they do.”

They watched. Tempest frowned, “This seems like an awful lot of work just to hit a ball.”

“ golf ” said Coraline. Crowley hastily swallowed his beer. 

Bear noticed. “What’s ‘golf’, then?”

“S’human fetch.”

“Pretty much,” Crowley grinned, “They wander around for hours, whacking a ball around then chasing after it, then trying to tap it into a little hole.”

“To what purpose?”

“Beats me. Supposed to be fun.”

“Dedicated players will spend hundreds of pounds on special clothes and equipment, especially the clubs, “ Coraline added, “Those’re the special sticks they use to hit the ball around.”

“Hundreds of pounds on sticks just to hit a ball?” Tempest said sceptically.

“I can believe it,” Wes sighed and Roman nodded.

“Beer’s improved,” said Mary, licking the foam from her lips.

Roman nodded, “And the wine.”

“Seems a lot like Rome though, otherwise,” Wes added shrewdly. 

Crowley nodded, “In poverty, housing, political corruption, and colonialism, yes. The slavery’s hidden but it’s still there. They really haven’t changed all that much.”

“For a while, it seemed they were actually getting somewhere,” Coraline sighed.

Crowley shook his head. “Crab bucket, I’m afraid,” he said sadly, “As soon as some of them start to progress, the others pull them back down. They’ve been doing that for, oh, a couple of thousand years now. It’s kind of sad, really.”

Coraline nodded, “It’s no wonder there’s so many of them in Hell.”

“I’d heard a rumour that it was still practically empty Upstairs,” Contessa sighed, “Rather sad that poor old Yeshua didn’t really make that much of a difference after all.”

“He meant well,” Coraline agreed, “But one of his ideas created a loophole that’s been a bureaucratic nightmare for both sides, ever since.” Aziraphale abruptly bit down on his lips. 

Wes frowned, “Weren’t They going to send another prophet to try to fix that?”

“Yeah, made it worse,” Contessa swallowed her wine, “They didn’t send me for that one, they had me still faffing about doing petty crap in Europe. They sent Astaroth.”

“ _What?!_ ” Wes gasped.

Crowley cringed, “Let’s not even go into how _that_ went.”

“Who’d they send to thwart him? Angel?”

Aziraphale shook his head and unbit his lips with a pop, “Gabriel.”

Contessa slammed her hands on the table, “You never told me _**that!**_ ” Wes started laughing the laughter of the horrified.

“They sent him to deliver the message,” Aziraphale shrugged, “It really explains a lot. You know how _literal_ Gabriel can be. And how black-and-white his thinking is. And he **insisted** that it all be written down word for word. It makes for a rather repetitive and rambling read, I can tell you.”

“And they sent him against _Astaroth_ ,” Wes said.

Aziraphale bit his lips again and nodded, “Perhaps he didn’t consider him to be much of a threat.” Wes rolled his eyes, appalled. 

“Yah,” Coraline said into her beer, “We just try to stay away from all that.” Crowley nodded, Aziraphale bit his lips yet again and Tempest grinned.

“Yeah, he still hasn’t gotten over that,” Crowley grinned back, looking fondly at Aziraphale, “I figure in another thousand years, he’ll start feeling it’s safe enough to hint.”

“Oh hush, you,” Aziraphale huffed. Crowley laughed.

“What’s that big empty space for?” Mary asked.

Crowley followed her gaze. “Oh! That’s the dance floor. There’s a live band later.”

“Oh,” Mary shrugged. She gestured at the speakers in the corners, “I like this song. It’s a little like the music in Jerusalem.”

“Yeahhhh, I used to like dancing in Jerusalem,” Crowley mused. 

Mary stared at him, “What do you mean ‘used to?’”

“Just… didn’t really feel like dancing anymore, I guess. Not until the 1970s, anyways.” Beside him, Contessa glanced at him and nodded sadly.

Mary stared at them. Then without another word, she seized their wrists and dragged them up onto the dance floor while they yelped and protested. 

Aziraphale sipped his wine and smiled. Much later, when he was comfortably tipsy, he would join the dance floor where Mary was trying to teach the whole pub how to dance in the Jerusalem style, and he would produce a passable shimmy.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One by one, the other Crowleys trickled back into the room, having changed back into their original clothing. They all looked sad but resigned. Aziraphale’s heart ached, once again wondering if he and Crowley had been cruel with their kindness. “Well,” he said sadly, “Time to take you all back home.”

Aziraphale kept watching the clock. 

“I’m going to miss them,” Crowley admitted. 

“I always did,” Aziraphale said with a little smile.

Crowley took another drink of his whiskey and frowned, “That’s something I’ve been meaning to ask… What did Starr mean that ‘you have to have them back before the alarm goes off’?”

“I believe I know what he meant by that.”

Crowley cocked an eyebrow above his sunglasses, “Why you?”

Aziraphale took another deep swallow of his wine. “You’ve never really _looked_ at the bookshop, have you?”

Crowley looked around, “Looks like it always does.”

“What does it always look like?”

“Bookshelves, books, mezzanine, back room, domed oculus, upstairs flat - your basic bookshop.”

“Mm-hmm. And outside?”

Crowley got up and went out the door to look. The building looked just the same - two storeys of- “Oh!” He went back in and stared up then went back outside again. “Where’s the oculus?” he said as he came back in, “And.. Where does the mezzanine fit? Hang on, is it…” He went back out then back in. “It’s… bigger on the inside?” he said in disbelief.

“I’m surprised you never noticed, given your past experience with time and the relative dimensions in space,” Aziraphale said with a little smile, “Has it never struck you as odd, putting the bookshelves in a circle like that? When I could surely fit more of them if they arranged in a more linear way?”

“Er… well….” Crowley hedged in the way that meant no, he’d never thought about it, “I mean, you’re _particular_ about organising your books…”

“Quite,” Aziraphale said, getting up. He rolled the carpet back from the angelic circle he’d used as a portal to Heaven in the past. Then he went around the bookshelves and flipped down hidden panels in the side of each one, revealing control boards. 

Crowley gaped. “Alright, Angel, what is it?”

Aziraphale didn’t answer right away. He went around the control panels, flipping switches and pressing buttons. The angelic circle lit up and hummed and shot a pillar of light up towards the oculus. “There, I think that about does it,” he said, “I’ve never actually used it before.” He smiled, “It’s a time machine. It belonged to someone called ‘the Rani.’ Two hundred years ago, I was entrusted with it by someone who wanted it kept safely hidden, especially from its original owner. As you know, I had rather a large collection of books so it rather obligingly turned itself into a bookstore.”

The best way to describe Crowley’’s expression was ‘gobsmacked.’ “You’ve been sitting on a _time machine_ all this bloody- … time?”

Aziraphale shrugged modestly, “Actually, I’d pretty much forgotten that it _was_ a time machine until, well, until Starr mentioned it.”

One by one, the other Crowleys trickled back into the room, having changed back into their original clothing. They all looked sad but resigned. Aziraphale’s heart ached, once again wondering if he and Crowley had been cruel with their kindness. “Well,” he said sadly, “Time to take you all back home.” He dragged his fingers over a glass-like surface and touched a switch. The light pillar began to pulse and a strange sound filled the air, similar to a trumpeting elephant without the asthma. The light outside the bookshop windows changed and the sound stopped. “Here we are. Just a few years left to go. You’ll find the Bentley parked outside.” Coraline nodded and walked towards the bookshop door. Aziraphale moved to intercept her. “My dear, I’m so sorry,” he said softly. 

Coraline frowned, “Why?”

“For the pain I’m going to cause you,” Aziraphale admitted, “I’m afraid I’m going to say some things that will break both our hearts. I’m sorry for that. Please understand that I was speaking from a place of fear, of what I knew Heaven and Hell would do to you when they found out.”

“Angel-”

“ **I was right** , Crowley.” Coraline fell silent and pale and her eyes widened behind her sunglasses. “And we only _just_ managed to escape with our existences intact.”

“…But we did it.”

“We did it,” Aziraphale agreed, “So hold onto that. Please, hold onto that.”

Coraline nodded. Then she opened the bookshop door and stepped out into the street. A moment later, the Bentley’s engine roared and it sped away.

Aziraphale closed the door, looking pained for a moment. Then he shook it off. “Fourteenth century next, I suppose,” he sighed and went about the bookshelf control panels to set the coordinates. Again the light and sound pulsed then quieted. Contessa stepped forward and he took her hand gently. “Just a little longer, my dear,” he said softly, “It gets better soon. And I think you’ll find I’m a little more amenable to your.. .suggestion, the next time you see me.”

Contessa’s eyebrow flexed above her smoked lenses and she tipped her head, “…Something happened?”

Aziraphale hesitated, “Yes. And I’m… not going to want to talk about it much. But I will accept your offer of wine. …rather a lot of it.”

The corner of her mouth lifted in that tiny half-smile she had, “I’ll bear that in mind.” 

Aziraphale lifted a hand and tucked a stray wisp of copper hair back under the black linen wimple, “Mind how you go, my dear.” He closed the door behind her, consigning her back to the plagues and unrest of 14th Century Italy. Then he set the course for Wessex. 

It was gloomy and cold and misty and damp and Aziraphale couldn’t suppress his wince. This had been… not one of his favourite assignments, though it had certainly been lightened by repeatedly ‘thwarting’ the Black Knight and the mysterious lady rumoured to dwell at the lake. He had to smile at that - legend had eventually got the two of them confused and eventually called **both** of them “the Lady of the Lake.”

“My armour is going to get _so rusty_ ,” Wes sighed beside him, peering out into the mist.

Aziraphale nodded, “It was **terrible**. So uncomfortable and such a nuisance to keep protected.”

Wes nodded, “Spent more time protecting the armour than it spent protecting me.”

“And that terrible cloak I had to wear.”

“What, that wasn’t your idea?”

“The thing caught on brambles all the time, of course it wasn’t my idea. Arthur thought it looked impressive.”

“ **I** thought you looked like you’d walked off with somebody’s pavilion stuck to your shoulders.”

“To be honest, so did I.” They smiled at each other. “Lots of thwarting in our future, my dear,” Aziraphale said.

“That’s a relief. Sounds like fun.”

“Mind how you go.” 

The light and sound pulsed again. When it stopped, the door opened onto Neolithic Europe. “I still can’t get over that they found your friend preserved in the ice like that,” Bear said.

“Remarkable, isn’t it?”

“And all those myths? Were they really about us?”

“Beira and Beithir, Mari and Sugaar — yes,” Aziraphale sighed, “Any time I find a legend about ‘elder magician and serpent companion’, if I dig deeply enough, I’ll find our shenanigans at the bottom of it.”

Bear grinned, “That was a lot of fun, wasn’t it? Aside from the whole you getting dismembered part.”

“Almost worth it for the ale you offered me.” They grinned at each other. “Goodbye, my dear. It won’t be long before we see each other again.”

Bear’s smile perked even brighter, “I’m looking forward to it!”

The door closed. Aziraphale glanced at Crowley, “Have you got him?” Crowley held up a motionless black and red noodle. Aziraphale nodded and put the bookshop machine in motion again. 

_”Do I have to go back…there?”_ Tempest had whispered, hugging himself, despondent. Aziraphale had ached - the thought of turning Tempest back out into the, well, the tempest, was… there was only one thought that was worse. But then Crowley had admitted that he’d woken up in China, dreadfully hungover and with no idea how he’d got there. He’d assumed he must have miracled himself there while drunk. So Aziraphale had taken his best wine and whiskey and let Tempest drink. 

The light and motion stopped and Aziraphale cracked the door open. Crowley peeked out and looked around, confirming that they were near the inn where he had woken up. He told Aziraphale what to look for, then handed over the unmoving snake. Aziraphale gathered Tempest close then marched up to the inn to let a room and buy a catty of tea and a jar of rice wine. In the room, he laid the passed-out snake onto the bed and watched as Tempest slowly coiled up into a nest. Gently he stroked the demon’s eye ridges. “Sleep well, my dear,” Aziraphale whispered, “No one shall ever know from me what you did during that terrible Flood.” The demon was changing back into his human form, very slowly and deeply asleep. Aziraphale smiled tenderly and bent to tuck him in under the covers. “May you sleep long and well and undisturbed, and may you dream of what you like best.”

Then he left the inn. 

The bookshop door closed. Again the light and sound pulsed, then the door opened upon wet sand. Thunder rumbled in the distance and the smell of ozone hung in the air. Wally approached the door and peered out at a walled structure in the distance. Aziraphale stood beside him. He suppressed a shudder as divine light speared out of the clouds into the Garden, instinctively pushing Wally behind him. Then the audience ended, the divine light vanished, and Aziraphale breathed a sigh of relief. He put a hand on Wally’s shoulder. “My dear fellow,” he whispered, “I don’t know why the Lord deemed you unworthy of Her love and forgiveness…” He paused to glance out at the Garden again and swallowed. “But you have **always** been worthy of mine.”

Wally gazed at him. He glanced at Crowley then back to Aziraphale. “…Why?”

Aziraphale shrugged, “Why did you come talk to me on the wall?” 

“Well…. Just…….. Sort of……………….” Wally shook his head finally, “I don’t know.”

Aziraphale smiled brightly, “Well, Every time I've seen you since has been a bright spot in my life."

"Yeah well," Wally glanced back at Crowley and grinned, "Doesn't look like I'll have any regrets."

"Oh, a few here and there," Aziraphale sighed, "But that was never one of them." He smiled again, "Off you go then, dear fellow. You've got a lot of work ahead of you."

"And a lot of fun, too," Wally grinned. He darted forward and hugged Aziraphale quickly, then dashed out the door into the desert. He turned into a snake then slid under the sand and was gone.

Aziraphale closed the door and looked back. Only two left, Roman and Mary. “Getting you back is going to be exceptionally tricky,” Aziraphale commented as he passed, fingers dancing over the screens on the bookshelves.

“Oh, right, ‘cause you’re going to have to land me just after I disappeared, aren’t you? Can you do that?”

“I believe I have the hang of it now, yes.” Aziraphale tapped a dial and the light and sound pulsed. 

Roman sidled up beside him to speak in a low voice, “Listen, um… I know you’re worried that giving us all this would be… unkind, but…” He trailed off. Emotions flashed across his face as he tried to work out how to express something a demon wasn’t supposed to express. 

Aziraphale’s face softened into a tender smile. “You’re welcome, my dear.”

Roman nodded, looking away. He opened the door just as light flickered from the door of the tavern across the alley, then he hurried out to follow on its heels.

Finally it was Mary's turn. Aziraphale swallowed, then set the coordinates and the bookshop sighed into travel again. When it arrived, Aziraphale turned to gaze at Mary. She was noticeably plumper and her skin seemed odd, as it loosened slightly from the layers building beneath it. He took her hands and held them. "I'm so terribly sorry, my dear," he began, "If I'd known... if I'd had _any_ idea that you would be facing something like this, at the time... I would have done something to prevent it or stop it, somehow. But this will have to do." He tilted his head and pressed a long kiss to her mouth. 

He felt her freeze. When he drew back, he saw her staring in shock, her mouth working soundlessly for a few moments. "a-Angel...?"

"Yes, I imagine that's going to sting for a few minutes," Aziraphale nodded, "It should activate when it's needed. Unfortunately, the hard part will be getting to that point. There's not much I can do for that but I'll try." He pressed another kiss to her forehead. When he drew back, she was visibly struggling not to cry. He leaned forward to rest his forehead against hers. "You **will** get through this," he whispered, "Eight years is a terribly long time and I fear this is all I can do to help you through it, but you **will** get through it. And we **will** see each other again." 

She nodded, unable to speak, and he stepped back to let her go. She looked back once more, then drew her shayla over her golden eyes and went through the door. 

Aziraphale sighed and set the coordinates back for the present. "What did you do?" Crowley said softly.

Aziraphale didn't quite look at him, "What do you remember?"

"I remember that kiss," Crowley replied, "Thought I'd dreamed it, to be honest. They said I passed out and didn't really regain consciousness for a long time. A _long_ time."

"An angel's kiss," Aziraphale nodded, "I put a hefty blessing into it, that's why it stung. It would activate when you passed out, to keep you unconscious and away from the worst of your suffering. I tried to cushion the pain you would endure until you passed out. And I... blessed your dreams."

Crowley nodded, feeling....... a swirl of things he couldn't really name, as he often did when faced with kindness from the angel. But _this_...! "I'll be back," he mumbled, and hurriedly left the shop. 

Aziraphale stared after him. Then he looked again at the bookshop.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale stopped and stared. "...Greetings," he said.
> 
> "Hello," said Aziraphale, "You finished your mission in Rome and you were going northeast to Umbria. I wonder if I might persuade you to go back to Rome?"

Aziraphale waited until the roar of the Bentley had faded then he set the coordinates again for Rome. He opened the door and waited until he heard a familiar whistling, then stepped out onto the road into the dawn light. 

Aziraphale stopped and stared. "...Greetings," he said.

"Hello," said Aziraphale, "You finished your mission in Rome and you were going northeast to Umbria. I wonder if I might persuade you to go back to Rome?"

Aziraphale took in the feathery-fluffy white-blond hair, the intensely coloured eyes, the golden signet ring on the same, right pinky finger where Aziraphale wore his own ring, the clasping hands. "Your clothes are _very_ strange," he ventured.

Aziraphale smiled, "They're two hundred years old in the time period that I'm from. Male-presenting fashion went through so much-" he waved his fingers, "Fiddle-dee-dee for a while but it seems to have settled down a bit." 

"I see," Aziraphale said, "Goodness! Well then... Return to Rome, you said?"

"If you would, please, yes. It's terribly important."

"... Yes, I suspect it must be, if you've come all this way to ask it of me. You must want to be very certain that this goes a certain way." He eyed Aziraphale a moment longer than straightened his shoulders, "Very well, what's my mission?"

"Go back to Rome. Go to this taverna," Aziraphale held out a paper with a map sketched out on it, "An old friend will arrive." Aziraphale looked up from the paper, puzzled. Then his eyes crinkled with delight. "He'll be in need of some cheering up. Tempt him to lunch."

Aziraphale looked puzzled, "That's my mission? Invite an old friend to lunch?"

" _Tempt_ him to lunch," Aziraphale clarified, "It's vitally important that you use that exact phrasing."

"But... isn't that..."

" _Please,_ Aziraphale," Aziraphale said. His eyes had darkened to an earnest midnight blue and he wasn't smiling anymore, "It's his last chance."

"I see," Aziraphale said slowly, "Well, when you put it like that, I can't possibly refuse. Does it matter where we lunch? There was a new restaurant I had briefly considered trying..."

"Petronius? Ohhhhhh," Aziraphale tilted his head and smiled, "He does _wonderful_ things to oysters!"

"Oh! Good?"

"Scrumptious!"

"Lovely!" Aziraphale smiled with a little wiggle, "Well then, I'd best get started right away. Long walk back to Rome and all that.. probably work up quite an appetite!"

"Thank you," Aziraphale whispered, "Every blessing upon you, Aziraphale." He turned to go back into the bookshop.

"Aziraphale..." Aziraphale looked back to see his younger self gazing at him seriously. "...Are you alright?"

Aziraphale thought of Crowley and felt the warmth blossom up from inside him and spread itself over his face in a smile painted gold by the rising sun. "I can honestly say... I've _never_ been happier."

The door closed, the door marked with Roman letters reading 'A.Z. Fell ', and there were strange sounds and the strange building faded away, leaving Aziraphale staring in the light of dawn. He turned around and set his pace back to Rome. He found the indicated taverna and ordered a drink then he found an empty games table and sat down to wait. 

* * * *

That was it, then. He'd blessed Mary and he'd ensured his younger self would tempt Roman and offer him the out he needed. That was all he could do to help Crowley. Unless....... 

* * * *

He placed his feet exactly, concentrating on not slipping on the slime that coated the ladder rungs. He expected that from Crowley's descriptions. The screams had started before he'd even reached the bottom. They got worse as he waded through the crowds. He took a deep breath of the foetid, stale air and let it out slowly, forcing himself to relax - he needed no light but his own, in this place where his kind were forbidden. 

"What's all the noise?" an annoyed voice drawled. Its owner stepped out of a side office then saw him and stopped. 

Aziraphale swallowed. He’d anticipated running into an Archdemon and he knew there was a chance that it could be this one. "Oh!" he said, "Lord Beelzebub zirself! Oh my goodness! How lovely to make your acquaintance, my Lord!" and he bowed. 

He’d seen Beelzebub fight, once, long long ago. Another Principality had made the mistake of thinking they could just walk up and smite. They quickly learned that one cannot smite a being who dissolves into a cloud of flies to avoid the sword then reforms to smite back. And then… well… that was how Aziraphale knew about how much paperwork was involved after an angel was discorporated. Beelzebub was the Prince of Hell for a reason. But Aziraphale had learned much about demons, during his thousands of years of matching wits against Crowley, and he had learned many other ways to thwart.

"Who the Heaven are you!?" Beelzebub blurted, staring, "Are you an angel?! How the Heaven did you get down here?!"

"Oh, yes, do forgive me, that was terribly rude of me not to introduce myself," the strangely dressed human-shaped entity drew himself up, "I am the Principality Aziraphale."

Around him, gasps greeted this news and he heard his name whispered in incredulous tones. Beelzebub frowned, "'Aziraphale'? That's..."

Another demon sidled up beside zir and whispered, "That's the name of the angel that Crowley kept complaining about. The one who keeps thwarting his plans."

"Oh yes, the demon Crowley!" Aziraphale said, smiling, "What a wily adversary he is! He certainly keeps me on my toes! He's really quite a handful, you know, all those temptations and schemes he comes up with. It's really quite a challenge staying ahead of _his_ game!"

"He **failed** ," the other demon hissed. Aziraphale thought she was Dagon, if he remembered Crowley's descriptions correctly. She looked rather different from the last time Aziraphale had seen her, though the teeth hadn't changed.

"Yes, that's why I'm here - to extend gracious congratulations to the thwarted," Aziraphale bowed again, then straightened up and beamed, "My job has certainly been much easier, now that Crowley's been vanquished. Everything going along just tickety-boo now."

"'Tickety-boo'?" scowled Dagon.

"Courtly love is spreading out, no more of that nasty 'lust' stuff. Chivalry is a lovely code of honour, such a wonderful antidote to sin and with no one there to tempt them..."

"We have other demons, you know," Beelzebub bristled.

"Yes indeed and they're..." Aziraphale felt around his pockets, "Oh dear, I seem to have..." He turned and caught the eye of the nearest demon, "My dear fellow, could I trouble you to check at the bottom of the ladder and see if I left a package there? It contains a gift for your dread Lord Beelzebub. Would you mind terribly?"

"Uhhhh sure..." the demon said in a dazed tone. He turned and pushed his way through the crowd. A few minutes later he returned with the package, "Sorry it's a bit torn, had to fight a few off from it."

"Thank you ever so much," Aziraphale took the package from him and felt around in his pockets for an object wrapped in foil, "Here is a sweet for your trouble. Off you go, then!"

"Gee! Thanks, mister!" the demon unwrapped the sweet and wandered away, beaming.

"As I was saying," Aziraphale noticed the way Beelzebub and Dagon were glancing at each other, "Yes and they're all lovely agents, they work **so** hard, you really must appreciate them. I feel almost sorry for the poor dears."

Beelzebub's eyes narrowed, "'zzZSorry'?"

"Why yes! They put such craftsmanship into it! Why, some of them will work on a single human for **decades!** " Aziraphale pouted, "Of course, with my courtly love and chivalry projects spreading out and my feudalism concept bringing communities together in sharing resources, it's all quite for nothing. The poor dears are making absolutely no headway at all. Oh but you mustn't be hard on them, my Lord Beelzebub, they're giving it everything they've got."

"Why are you just standing there?" a new voice chittered, "Why are we not killing it?"

Aziraphale turned, "Oh! My goodness! It's Lord Pytho, isn't it? Oh I'm terribly sorry, do forgive me, I wasn't expecting to meet anyone else, I didn't bring you a gift."

"Uh..s'alright," Pytho whispered, feeling suddenly thrown off balance.

By now Dagon's minion had brought her a stack of parchments. She read through them and nudged Beelzebub while Aziraphale chattered on, making polite conversation with Pytho. They whispered, staring at the visitor's strange clothes. "This hasn't happened," Dagon interrupted, "Rome still dominates."

"Not yet," Aziraphale replied, "But it will. It's started. It's not evident yet but it's spreading out, even now."

"You're lying," Dagon accused.

"Angels can't lie," Aziraphale said, "And as Lord of Lies, Lord Pytho, you would certainly know if I could, would you not?"

"That's... true," Pytho said slowly, "So that means..."

"You're one of the time wranglers," Beelzebub finished. Crowley had been a starmaker; he had had time powers, once. Ze was starting to understand why only Crowley ever seemed to have a chance against this angel. Ze exchanged a glance with Dagon and Pytho, drew a breath, and bit zir lip.

Aziraphale said nothing but he smiled and pushed the box forward, "I do hope you'll accept my congratulations. Crowley was a worthy opponent with his machinations but I must admit, it's lovely not to have him interfering in my plans anymore. Now, I won't take any more of your valuable time. Thank you ever so much for indulging my visit. Toodle-pip!" He waved then turned and walked back out into the crowd, brushing easily through.

"'Toodle-pip'?" Dagon repeated. Beelzebub was staring at the box. A smell was wafting up from it. "Is that...?"

Beelzebub pulled off the wrapping and opened the box. "...Rotten oxtail," ze breathed, "Ohhhh! I haven't had rotten oxtail since, oh Satan, five hundred years? More?" Ze inhaled deeply of the foetid scent, "Mmmmmm smells lovely!"

Dagon curled her lip, "You're not actually going to eat that, are you? It's a bribe from an _angel!_ "

"Yeszzz," Beelzebub drawled thoughtfully. Ze stared at Pytho, "What did he _say_ to you?"

"Asked me about my work," Pytho sounded dazed, "Asked me about my people. Told me they work hard. Said I should reward them."

"That's it," Beelzebub hissed angrily, "He's got _influence._ No wonder nobody else can make any headway against him."

"Crowley always said Aziraphale didn't need a sword," Dagon said doubtfully.

"Because he can talk them out of the need for it," Beelzebub put the box down with grim finality, "That does it -- get Crowley, get him out of there and fix him up. Look through these reports, find somewhere to send him, tell him he's got one chance to get it right."

Dagon gaped, "You're sending Crowley back topside? Why?"

"Because we _juszzt szzaw_ what that Principality can do! That thing just walked right into **Hell** , got a couple of demons to do his bidding, bribed **me** with exactly the right kind of gift, and walked right back out again unharmed! Nobody could touch him! Nobody **dared!** "

" **You** didn't try!"

"Neither did **you** , _General,_ " Beelzebub hissed. Dagon had the sense to look away. "Crowley'szz the only demon who's ever been able to deal with _that!_ "

"Starting to wonder about that," Dagon murmured.

Beelzebub threw down the stack of parchments, "Doesn't matter! Get him out, fix him up, find him a mission and send him back! Those are my orders! Now get to it."

* * * *

That was that. The machine hummed back into place and shut down. He flipped all the switches and pushed all the buttons then tipped the control panels closed, turning it back into an ordinary bookshop. 

The door opened immediately. “What did you **do** , Angel?” Crowley said urgently, “Where did you **go**?”

“Just closing a few loops,” Aziraphale said hesitantly, “Didn’t it occur to you that ‘tempting’ you to lunch was a bit of an odd thing for me to say?”

“Yeah,” Crowley nodded warily, “Yeah, it did.”

“I’d had a vision. Well… at the time, I thought it was a vision. I know better now, of course.”

Crowley nodded then froze. He sniffed. Aziraphale fidgeted nervously as Crowley came right up to him, put his tongue out and _sniffed_ , then looked down. Aziraphale tried to hide his feet but knew that Crowley had seen the slime. “ _You went to **Hell**!?_”

“Only a little bit,” Aziraphale squeaked. 

“ ** _Angel!!?_** ”

“It’s the question I couldn’t find an answer for!” Aziraphale protested, “ _Why_ did they let you go, after only eight years? What made them change their minds?” He wrung his hands, “And I thought.. Perhaps **I** did. So I, I went down and… paid them a little visit!”

Crowley had thousands of years of experience with just how profoundly Aziraphale could understate. Raining for over a month to raise a flood to wipe out most of the human race became “God’s a bit tetchy.” “Michael’s a bit of a stickler and you don’t want to get Gabriel angry with you” had been ample warning for what Crowley would experience as ‘Aziraphale’ in Heaven and he was still taken aback by the depth of the cheerfully callous malevolence. “’A little visit??’”

“Yes, I, I just popped down to congratulate them. I brought a gift for Lord Beelzebub, asked a nice young demon to run an errand for me and I gave him a sweet, and I had a lovely conversation with Lord Pytho.”

Crowley nearly smacked his forehead, “Angel, **what did you say?** ”

“I just… told them how my ‘courtly love’ concept was progressing without my adversary interfering with his wiles.”

“And… then what?”

“I gave Beelzebub my gift and then I walked out.”

“Walked out. Of Hell.” Aziraphale’s clothes were completely undamaged, if a bit whiffy from the brimstone. “And nobody attacked you?”

“I believe they were all a bit stunned that I walked in in the first place.”

They would be. ‘Nice’ was a four-letter word in Hell and Aziraphale had weaponised it. He’d been Nice to members of the Dark Council, so Nice he’d terrified them. And Crowley had _missed_ it! “You did that… for me…”

Aziraphale fought the impulse to deny it and instead, met Crowley’s eyes. “Yes,” he said, “And I would have done it then, had I had any idea of what was happening to you. But I couldn’t do it then so… well, I did it now.”

“Angel…”

Aziraphale passed a hand down himself, miracling himself clean and fresh. Then he climbed the spiral staircase to the mezzanine level. He moved a section of bookshelf, revealing a hidden safe, which he opened. Inside was a fully modern climate-controlled case. Crowley had followed him up the stairs and now stood beside him, peering over his shoulder as Aziraphale slid the case out. Inside was a leather-bound codex. Aziraphale slipped on his cotton gloves and carefully opened the case. “When I was given this for safekeeping, I was told that Peter wanted it destroyed, along with every copy. A few survived but this is the only complete text of the Gospel of Mary left in the world.”

“It’s the original,” Crowley breathed. 

Aziraphale nodded, “I recognised your handwriting immediately.”

“And you’ve… kept it all this time? Through everything?”

“It’s my most prized possession,” Aziraphale nodded. He put the book back into its case, closed it and adjusted the settings, then pushed it all back into the safe. “I was **very** relieved to find it had been restored safely. When you told me the shop had burned down… Out of all of my books, this was the loss that hurt the most.” He took off his gloves and turned to face Crowley.

Whose expression was difficult to name. “Angel…”

“You know how much I love you, Crowley,” Aziraphale said, “I’ve walked into Hell to save you once already, are you really that surprised that I’d do it again?” Crowley’s legs noodled out from under him, collapsing him in a heap on the floor. Aziraphale sank to his knees beside him and gathered him into his arms. “I suppose it is all a bit much to take,” he sighed into Crowley’s hair, “My poor demon… Finding out who you were, released from your mission, confronting your past and learning that you really do snore when you’re a snake…” He held Crowley in silence for a long time.

“My memories have been coming back,” Crowley whispered finally, “I wanted to interview them…. I wanted to know if it was worth it.”

“Clearly, you decided it was.”

Crowley shook his head, “They all said **you** were worth it.”

Aziraphale blinked, “Me?”

Crowley nodded. “Even Wally. Poor fellow’d only just met you yet he couldn’t stop talking about you. That’s what convinced me.”

It was Aziraphale’s turn to fall silent. “I’d been calling you ‘beloved,’” he said softly, “I didn’t realize… I know demons don’t like to hear their past names…”

“S’different when it’s you,” Crowley sniffed.

“I think I only saw you the once… Did Lucifer never recognise you?”

Crowley chuckled, “No, he never did. Shows you how much attention he was paying, doesn’t even recognise his own twin - ever! Not even when I infiltrated the star construction team.”

“Well. That’s… that’s certainly self-centred.”

Crowley snorted, “Oh you have no idea.”

Aziraphale held him in silence for several minutes. “What was the baseball?” he asked suddenly.

Crowley’s head snapped up, puzzled, “Huh?”

“Starr said someone must have found out about the baseball. I was wondering what he meant by that.”

“Oh. It’s… erm, I was… screwing around with the star matter one day, trying to see how small I could make a black hole. I got one down to the size of a baseball then it…kind of… slipped.”

“You dropped it,” Aziraphale translated.

“Not on purpose,” Crowley protested, “Anyways, I found it again. It’s out spinning around outside Neptune’s orbit, it’s billions of kilometres from here, it’s fine."

“Ah,” said Aziraphale, “How do you find something like that?”

“Just… skeet stuff at it and watch how it bends their orbits,”

“And… you didn’t think anyone else would notice?” Aziraphale asked slyly.

“As far as I could tell, nobody did.”

“Apparently not the most observant bunch, all around.” Crowley sniggered and Aziraphale smiled, “Why don’t you get our bed ready, my dear, and I’ll get us a book and some tea? Perhaps chamomile?”

Crowley pushed himself back to sit on his heels and raked a hand through his hair. He felt wrung out and exhausted but… whole. “Yeah.” He got to his feet and went into Aziraphale’s bedroom, switching on the mattress heater on the best bed he’d ever had - independent-coil mattress, memory foam topper, heated mattress pad, black linen sheets, gaudy tartan quilt, shared by his most precious angel. 

Said angel descended the spiral stairs and went to a shelf. He poked around in it for a few minutes before finding what he was looking for - he pulled out his copy of _God Is A Verb_ and smiled. 

He turned… and noticed that the rug was still slightly pulled back, exposing part of the summoning circle that had once been his portal to Heaven. He reached to tweak it smooth and paused. He glanced at the book then glanced up. “Thank you,” he whispered. 

There was no answer. There never was. Yet this time, he had a sense, just the faintest feeling, that he’d been heard. He tweaked the rug into place and smoothed it, then went into the back to make the tea. 

* * * *

_”I’ll do it.”_

_**”Then give unto Me thy sword, and take thou the guise of a Watcher among the stars, and find there those who would seek to disrupt all that I have wrought.”** _

_”I’ll lose so much… I’ll lose You.”_

_**”My Love shall be embodied to walk the earth with thee. Seek thou thy sword and thou shalt never be far from My Love.”** _

_”Alright… Alright. Let’s do this, before I change my mind.”_

_And whence came the war in Heaven, did the angel spread the wings of the peacock one last time and Fell, and the fires of Hell burned the vermilion feathers to the black of coal, and the angel was lost to darkness._

_**Goodbye… Aziz** _


End file.
